greenhouse

In an agrivoltaic study, UCLA engineers put a semi-transparent solar roof on a greenhouse, and some unexpected things happened with both the roof and the plants. The researchers at UCLA Samueli School of Engineering designed semi-transparent organic solar panels that can absorb energy from sunlight without blocking the light that the plants need. The study, “Achieving sustainability of greenhouses by integrating stable semi-transparent organic photovoltaics,” was published last week in…

CLIMATEWIRE | NOAA is celebrating a rare event: progress by the United States in detecting what is believed to be the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, and then working with businesses to reduce its emissions. It is called sulfur hexafluoride, or SF6. While its abundance in the atmosphere is relatively small, according to a NOAA report released last week, the gas traps 25,000 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 does over a centurylong time scale. And its emissions are likely to influence the Earth’s climate for…

Solar farms and conventional agriculture are competing for land, and that conflict will likely only get worse as our need for both grows. Scientists at UCLA have now tested a way to combine the two by placing semi-transparent solar cells on the glass roofs of greenhouses, finding that they can actually improve the growth of plants inside.Greenhouses and solar energy both need lots of sunlight, so it’s no surprise that engineers have experimented with building them into the same structures. Experiments have shown that it’s…

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the GMI-II's detection principle. Credit: Wang Qiansheng To meet the demand for greenhouse gas detection, a novel phase correction algorithm of interferometric data for the optimally designed Greenhouse gases Monitoring Instrument-II (GMI-II) has been developed by researchers led by Prof. Xiong Wei from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).…

While crop plants do sequester some atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) via photosynthesis, they could always use a bit of help. California-based startup Andes is aiming to provide that help, by putting carbon-capturing microbes in the soil of farmers' fields.Here's the basic idea behind how the Andes system is claimed to work …At the start of each growing season, the farmer adds both the regular crop seeds and the special microbes to the soil. "The microorganisms we are using are proprietary, but we can share they are…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain In an analysis published in the British Journal of Management that included 592 firms from 35 countries operating from 2002–2019, higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions were negatively associated with market value, whereas climate change initiatives were positively linked with market value. Surprisingly, climate change…

Greenhouse gas emissions refer to the release of harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, into the atmosphere. These emissions are a significant contributor to global warming and climate change, as they trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and cause temperatures to rise.The utilization of multiple mitigation strategies for natural gas-generated electricity may be crucial.Approximately 25% of the global electricity supply is generated by natural gas-fired power plants, which contribute…

Examples of intact soil cores a) collected/stored (soils in image are not from Puerto Rico) and b) sealed into incubation jars (soils in image are from Puerto Rico but may not have been used for gas measurements) for N2 and N2O measurement using the Nitrogen Free Air Recirculation Method (N-FARM). Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2022JG007210 Nitrogen changes form as it cycles…

Medical gowns are garments worn by healthcare workers, patients, and visitors in medical facilities to prevent the spread of infection. These gowns are typically made of disposable materials such as paper or polypropylene, and are designed to protect the wearer’s clothes and skin from exposure to bodily fluids, chemicals, and other contaminants.According to new research published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, biodegradable medical gowns, which were intended to be a more environmentally friendly alternative to…

In our daily lives, dust is little more than a nuisance to be wiped away. On a global scale however, dust carried around the world on air currents has an impact on planetary temperatures. A new study shows that this dust could be masking the true impact of greenhouse gasses on climate change and that a shift in the dust quantity could lead to a sudden, albeit small, spike in worldwide temperatures.Each year, millions of tons of dust is taken up from deserts around the world by our atmosphere. About 50% of this dust comes…