DOE Releases Roadmap to Achieve Carbon Neutral Aviation Emissions

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm today announced the release of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge Roadmap, a comprehensive plan that outlines a government-wide strategy for scaling up new technologies to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) across the U.S. airline industry. A collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Aviation Administration, the roadmap will spur technological innovation to produce SAF, position the country as a global leader in the emerging SAF market, and enable America to meet President Biden’s clean energy goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

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Climate Change Is Burying Archaeological Sites Under Tons of Sand

THE NIZARI GARRISON at Gird Castle resisted the Mongol horde of Hulagu Khan for 17 years before surrendering in December 1270. The fortress rose 300 meters above the surrounding plains of present-day eastern Iran, with three rings of fortifications enclosing its base. But dwindling supplies and an outbreak of cholera forced the defenders to abandon their posts after one of the longest sieges in medieval history.

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Plastic recycling a “failed concept,” study says, with only 5% recycled in U.S. last year as production rises

Washington — Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.”

Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,” the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West’s plastic waste in 2018.

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Warming waters cited as “key culprit” in mass die-off of Alaska snow crabs

Climate change is a prime suspect in a mass die-off of Alaska’s snow crabs, experts say, after the state took the unprecedented step of canceling their harvest this season to save the species.

According to an annual survey of the Bering Sea floor carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, estimates for the crustaceans’ total numbers fell to about 1.9 billion in 2022, down from 11.7 billion in 2018, or a reduction of about 84 percent.

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Microplastics Detected in Human Blood in New Study

Microplastics, or tiny plastic particles, are ubiquitous pollutants found almost everywhere on earth. Scientists have detected microplastics near the peak of Mount Everest, in the Mariana Trench and even in baby poop. But researchers have now found a new vessel for microplastics: human blood.

In a paper published in Environment International, researchers found plastic in the blood of 17 of 22 of study participants, or about 77 percent.

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The largest American solar panel maker is going to build a $270M thin film PV R&D center

First Solar, the largest solar panel maker in the United States, today announced that it will invest around $270 million in a dedicated thin film PV R&D innovation center. The new facility, which will be in Perrysburg, Ohio, is expected to be the first of its scale in the United States.

First Solar’s new R&D center will be near its existing Perrysburg manufacturing facility, and cover an area of around 1.3 million square feet. It will feature a pilot manufacturing line that will be able to produce full-sized prototypes of thin film and tandem PV modules. The facility is expected to be completed in 2024.

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