BIOMASS
Algae Biofuel Back From Dead, Now With Carbon Capture

Algae biofuel could have another moment in the sun, now that more federal dollars are pouring into carbon capture-and-recycling technology.


Algae biofuel could have another moment in the sun, now that more federal dollars are pouring into carbon capture-and-recycling technology (photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL).

ByTina Casey
Published 2 days ago

Algae biofuel stakeholders have been stuck in the doldrums for years, but in an odd twist of fate, the fossil fuel industry could help algae make a comeback. Apparently the new plan is to pair algae farming with waste carbon from gas power plants and other industrial operations. In addition to biofuel, algae farming can also produce animal feed, fish food, nutritional supplements and toiletries for people, and bioplastic products.

Why Algae Biofuel?

CleanTechnica spilled plenty of ink on the area of algae biofuel research some years ago, during the Obama administration. Unlike other energy crops, algae can be grown in ponds or human-made structures without taking arable land out of circulation, and it has a rapid growth-to-harvest cycle. The high oil content of certain strains of algae is another leading attraction, and the algae R&D pathway can lead in a carbon negative direction.

On the down side, figuring out an economical way to cultivate algae and extract the oil at an industrial scale is a challenging endeavor, especially when the over-arching goal is to reduce carbon emissions rather than adding them.

The picture was looking bright in the early 2000s, up through the Obama administration. However, by the time former President Obama left office in 2016, oil prices were crashing. The relatively low cost of petroleum seemed to put the idea of a bioeconomy fueled by algae biofuel to bed.

Nevertheless, the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory was among those continuing to invest in algae research projects, and the algae field continued to branch off into new angles. In 2018, for example, the Energy Department was funding the algae bioplastics angle. In 2020 researchers were exploring the idea of hooking up with high speed 3-D printing. The Mars mission has also sparked a new burst of interest in the algae biofuel field.

Carbon Capture To The Rescue

In January of this year the Energy Department’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) launched the new AlgaePrize competition for students, aimed at developing “the next generation of bioeconomy professionals by expanding novel solutions to production, processing, and new product development on the way to gigaton-scale algae commercialization for fuel, food, products, and carbon dioxide utilization/sequestration.”

If you caught that thing about carbon dioxide, that’s where the happy dance for natural gas stakeholders comes in. Carbon capture from flue gas could turn out to be a value-added element that improves the bottom line for algae farming.

That’s where BETO seems to be heading. Last week the office announced a $16.5 million round of funding for six algae projects related to carbon dioxide capture.

The six projects were selected for their potential to demonstrate an improvement in carbon capture by algal systems leading to biofuels and other products, while also cutting costs and decreasing overall greenhouse gas emissions.

“Algae can grow on waste CO2, functioning as a carbon sink. This algae biomass can then be used to create low or no-emissions biofuels and bioproducts which displace GHGs,” BETO noted.

Natural Gas Hearts Algae Biofuel

Not all six of the new BETO-funded projects are focusing on carbon captured from flue gas. The Colorado School of Mines, for example, plans to put its pond-grown algae system through its paces using concentrated carbon dioxide from direct air capture.

Another awardee, Colorado State University, is working on an algal system that functions efficiently on atmospheric carbon.

Three of the other awardees are focusing on carbon dioxide from industrial fossil energy users including power plants: Dioxide Materials, MicroBio Engineering, and the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Sciences. A fourth awardee in the point source class is Global Algae Innovations, which is focusing more specifically on flue gas from a naphtha-fired power plant.

If the biofuel angle doesn’t work out at commercial scale, other aspects of the algae biofuel market could come into play.

Market analysts are forecasting growth in the algae market in the coming years. Consumers are on the prowl for healthy diet supplements, especially among the up-and-coming generation.

“Rise in the acceptance of algae-based food products and a growing popularity of vegan food are expected to emerge as trends in the algae market. Algae are already widely employed in bioplastics, cosmetics, food, bio-packaging, biofuel, and pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products,” observes the firm Transparency Market Research.

The Long Algae Biofuel Game Of ExxonMobil

All this activity puts the on-again, off-again algae biofuel journey of ExxonMobil into perspective.

ExxonMobil spearheaded the charge into shale gas after the Bush Administration lifted Clean Water Act regulations in 2006, and the company continued to double down on gas acquisitions even as prices plummeted.

The pell-mell rush into shale gas looked like a bad bet for any number of reasons, especially when gas prices cratered after 2005. Among other problems for the company, the issue of stranded fossil energy assets also began to rise in 2014 as shareholder activists demanded transparency. The Covid-19 pandemic didn’t help matters much. As of last year, the company was in so much financial trouble that it fell off the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

On top of all that, ExxonMobil’s notorious role in the repression of climate science is coming home to roost, now that climate-related catastrophes are impacting populations around the world and here in the US, too.

Nevertheless, gas is soaring again and ExxonMobil has a chance to wriggle back up on top, partly due to its interest in algae biofuel.

ExxonMobil has been investing in algae biofuel research since at least 2009, though its activity in the commercial aspect of algae farming has not been a straight line since then. In 2013, for example, the company seemed to lose interest in making quick entry into the algae biofuel market. Instead, it pivoted into foundational research under a 4-year contract with the firm Synthetic Genomics, Inc.

By 2018, the company was also collaborating with the Colorado School of Mines and Michigan State University on algae biofuel research, but a clear pathway to commercial-scale algae biofuel had yet to emerge.

The carbon capture angle could be a game changer. The outlook for algae biofuel looked gloomy indeed several years ago, but now that more federal dollars are pumping into point-source carbon capture the prospects have brightened.

ExxonMobil’s own investments in carbon capture could also come into play. By 2016, the company was already dipping into the idea that a carbon recycling solution at power plants could make a better case for carbon capture than the capture-and-sequestration model.

Next Steps For Algae

ExxonMobil, for one, is excited. The company lists the following benefits compared to corn ethanol and other biofuels made from land-based energy crops:Unlike making ethanol and biodiesel, producing algae does not compete with sources of food, rendering the food-vs.-fuel quandary a moot point.

Because algae can be produced in brackish water, including seawater, its production will not strain freshwater resources the way ethanol does.

Algae consume CO2, and on a life-cycle basis have a much lower emissions profile than corn ethanol given the energy used to make fertilizer, distill the ethanol, and to farm and transport the latter.

Algae can yield more biofuel per acre than plant-based biofuels – currently about 1,500 gallons of fuel per acre, per year. That’s almost five times more fuel per acre than from sugar cane or corn.

That’s all well and good, but it’s about time for ExxonMobil and other fossil energy stakeholders to stop digging more carbon up from the ground and start taking giant steps towards a more sustainable energy profile.

Capturing carbon dioxide at power plants is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t change anything in terms of the local environmental impacts of fossil energy extraction, and it doesn’t make a dent in the amount of fugitive emissions escaping from drilling sites, transportation networks and storage facilities.

To the extent that algae farming at gas power plants enables more gas extraction, it’s just another form of greenhouse gas whack-a-mole.

Either way, it looks like algae farming at power plants has a window of opportunity. Last November ExxonMobil re-upped its collaboration with Synthetic Genomics, under the new name of Viridos. If you have any thoughts about that, drop us a note in the comment thread.

Follow me on Twitter @TinaMCasey.

Photo: Algae bioreactor for biofuel and other products (credit: Dennis Schroeder, NREL).

Over-reliance on biomass-based carbon removal technologies could increase climate and food security risks

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

An international team of researchers highlighted the inherent risk of relying too much on carbon removal technologies to limit climate change in a new study just published in Nature.

To limit global warming to within 2°C above pre-industrial levels, many are putting their hopes on the world’s abundant supply of biomass – materials like wood and wood residues, energy crops, and agricultural remnants – to deploy large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), the use of which is also assumed to increase considerably in the future. The problem with this strategy, however, is that the detrimental effects of climate change on crop yields may reduce the capacity of BECCS and threaten food security, thus creating an unrecognized positive feedback loop on global warming.

In their study, the research group comprising researchers from IIASA, Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and several other institutions around the world, endeavored to quantify the strength of this feedback by taking a closer look at the nexus of climate change, agriculture, bioenergy, and carbon removal technologies. IIASA provided the core model that enabled the study, along with the associated expertise and feedback in designing the study itself.

Using the shared socioeconomic pathways of climate mitigation, the researchers designed a number of scenarios in which the deployment of large-scale mitigation technologies and BECCS starts in different decades, from 2030 to 2100, and further considered technical solutions to food shortages including cropland expansion, nitrogen fertilizer intensification, nitrogen use efficiency enhancement, afforestation, and international food trade. The feedback on future climate change and food shortages caused by reduced BECCS potential was quantified using an Earth System model and as a function of the delayed mitigation.

The simulation results showed that the feedback of biomass-based carbon removal technologies could have a significant impact on the long-term trend of future climate change. Owing to the negative impact of climate change on crop yields, the potential of BECCS decreases over time, which could lead to failure to achieve the 2°C goal of the Paris Agreement and threaten global food security. For example, when large-scale mitigation and BECCS are delayed from 2040 to 2060, the reducing yields of agricultural residue for carbon removal technologies could in turn increase global warming from 1.7°C to 3.7°C by 2200. Of this 2°C increase, 0.8°C is attributable to the loss of BECCS capacity caused by the feedback that had been ignored so far, while the remaining 1.2°C are attributed to the delayed mitigation itself.

Furthermore, this would be accompanied by a decline in global average daily food calories per capita – in other words, the total calorie supply available for human consumption divided by the total number of population using it – from 2100 to 1500 kilo calories per day. Notably, the responses of food supply to climate change vary from region to region.

The results further indicate that when climate mitigation is delayed from 2040 to 2060, the number of developing countries that see a domestic food supply gap would increase from 81 to 90 in 2100. As the food gap in 2100 would remain negative in developed countries, the export of food crops like wheat, rice, and maize from regions like China, Europe, and North America to other regions would reduce the fraction of people threatened by hunger. The projected export of crops, however, would be many times larger than the current levels for these regions, meaning that the increase in the scale of food trade could be too large to be plausible. As a result, early climate mitigation or regional population migration might be the only solution to satisfy food demand if the projected food trade failed to be achieved. If carbon removal technologies relying on biomass could however be widely deployed in the short term, there is still hope to alleviate both global warming and a food crisis.

“Although in our study we focused on only one carbon removal technology – BECCS – and showed how it will likely be limited because of harmful climate feedbacks, it is entirely possible that other technologies have similar limitations,” notes IIASA researcher, Thomas Gasser, one of the study authors. “Therefore, over-reliance on such unproven technologies when designing climate policies means taking the risk of simply failing to reach one's goal. The solution may be to diversify the technologies (to spread the risks out), but primarily it is to rely on conventional mitigation approaches, that is, to lower energy demand and consumption, and develop a sustainable clean energy supply.”

Reference

Xu, S., Wang, R., Gasser, T., Ciais, P., Peñuelas, J., Balkanski, Y., Boucher, O., Janssens, I.A., et al. (2022). Delayed use of bioenergy crops might threaten climate and food security. Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05055-8

 

About IIASA:

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at

 

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-05055-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

Delayed use of bioenergy crops might threaten climate and food security.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2022

Climate change puts availability of vital

 renewable energy source at risk,

 research reveals

Climate change is putting the availability of biomass fuels and technologies – a vital alternative to fossil fuels – at risk, according to new research.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF YORK

Climate change is putting the availability of biomass fuels and technologies – a vital alternative to fossil fuels  – at risk, according to new research. 

The study has found that as temperatures rise, the window of opportunity to maximise the use of biomass from plants, wood and waste as a renewable energy source and an alternative to petrochemicals is closing.

Published in Nature and led by researchers at the universities of York and Fudan in China, the study investigated the sustainability of biomass exploitation. 

The researchers found that if urgent action is not taken to reduce fossil fuels in favour of bioenergy and other renewables, climate change will decrease crop yields, reducing the availability of biomass feedstocks. Reducing food production is also likely to incentivise cropland expansion, increasing greenhouse gas emissions from land use change and further accelerating the rate of climate change, the researchers say. 

Co-author of the paper, Professor James Clark from the Department of Chemistry, said: “Biomass fuels and feedstocks offer a renewable source of energy and a viable alternative to petrochemicals, but the results of our study act as a stark warning about how climate change will put their availability at risk if we continue to allow global temperatures to rise. 

“There is a tipping point where climate change will severely impede our ability to mitigate against its worst effects. Biomass with carbon capture and storage including the manufacture of bio-based chemicals must be used now if we are to maximise its advantage.”

In the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and in many assessments of climate mitigation, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been highlighted as a crucial element of the strategy for meeting the target of 2 °C or 1.5 °C warming set out in the Paris Agreement.

The researchers used global data to model the responses of crop yields to rising average temperatures, atmospheric CO2 concentration, nitrogen fertilisation intensity and precipitation. They found that if a switch to BECCS is delayed to the second half of this century, biomass production would be largely reduced by climate change, resulting in a failure to achieve the 2 °C goal and jeopardising global food security. 

For example, when BECCS is delayed from 2040 to 2060, the researchers found reduced yields of agricultural residue for biomass technologies would decrease the capacity of BECCS and increase global warming from 1.7 to 3.7 °C by 2200, with a decline in global average daily crop calories per capita from 2.1 million calories to 1.5 million calories.

The researchers calculate that in this scenario the scale of the food trade would need to increase by 80% from 2019 levels in order to avoid severe food shortages in many parts of the developing world worst affected by climate change. 

Professor Clark added: “If negative-carbon mitigation technologies relying on biomass could be widely deployed in the short term, there is still hope that we can alleviate global warming and a global food crisis.”

This research was carried out by an international team of scientists in the UK, China and Spain. Delayed use of bioenergy crops might threaten climate and food security is available here. 

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-05055-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

'Delayed use of bioenergy crops might threaten climate and food security'

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2022

Study suggests COVID face masks don’t impair most social interaction

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: HOW PARTICIPANTS EXPERIENCED THE INTERACTION ACCORDING TO WEARING THE MASK, GLASSES AND HAT. ONLY “DISCOMFORT FROM WEARING A MASK” WAS AFFECTED BY WEARING A MASK. view more 

CREDIT: CRANDALL, ET AL.

LAWRENCE — A new study just published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology debunks the idea that wearing a mask to slow the spread of disease damages most everyday social exchanges.

Reporting results from an experiment with 250 university students carried out in 2012 — before masks became fodder for political and cultural angst — psychology researchers based at the University of Kansas and Wellesley College found mask wearing “had no effect on the ease, authenticity, friendliness of the conversation, mood, discomfort or interestingness” of interactions between students.

Each student was instructed to chat with another participant who seemed like themselves, though the pair had to share the same gender and mask condition. Participants chatted with their partner for two minutes about their favorite vegetables, whether Pluto is a planet or the number of credits needed for their major. Afterward, they reported on their interactions via questionnaire.

“Actually, we were disappointed at the time because covering the face did almost nothing,” said lead author Chris Crandall, professor of psychology at KU. “It just really didn't change it much. It didn't make conversations awkward. People didn't think it was weird. They didn't make the conversations unfriendly. And they still found people to meet. There's a little slippage of how similar the other person was to them, but it was very modest. This was in 2012, and we set aside the data because we did this big interaction and we got nothing. Now, many years later we discover, ‘Oh, it's really quite meaningful.’ People have the skills to look past things that block the face — a mask, a hat, sunglasses and so on. We’re still able to get through to people.”

When choosing a discussion partner who seemed similar to themselves, masked participants only reported a significantly different experience from their unmasked counterparts in relying on the “look of their face and head” when picking. In important other measures, like “their friendliness,” or “seemed similar to me,” the masked vs. unmasked state made little difference, researchers found.

Previously, the team had run a similar student experiment, but instead of obscuring faces, half of the participants’ torsos were hidden with black plastic bags — a hindrance that skewed normal social interactions much more than the experiment with the masks, hats and shades.

“I was surprised by the results,” said co-author Angela Bahns, associate professor of psychology at Wellesley College. “We assigned people to wear masks or not because we thought masks would have an effect on who people interacted with and how the conversation went. Wearing the mask had almost no effects at all, except that people recognized they were wearing one. I think the biggest lesson to be learned from our study is that there is nothing inherent about wearing a mask that interferes with everyday social interactions. People — mostly grown-ups — have made mask wearing controversial in the era of COVID, politicizing the use of face masks so that the choice to wear one or not carries excess social meaning.”

In 2012, mask wearing hadn’t yet become a hot-button political issue, but the researchers did gather survey data on participants’ political leanings, among many other traits. At the time, a student’s stance along the conservative-liberal divide had no relationship with their attitude toward wearing a mask. “Wearing a mask, a hat and sunglasses did not impede liberals or conservatives,” the team reported. Omri Gillath, professor of psychology at KU, also served as a co-author. 

“The research we did in 2012 can't be done today,” Crandall said. “There's just no way to do it, because when you say, ‘Put on a mask,’ people say, ‘Well, OK, you liberal Fauci follower, you’re a sheep for putting on the mask.’ Masks are suffused with meaning — political, social, health — in a way they weren’t then. Today, putting on a mask is a loss of liberty, so you might expect Republicans or conservatives could be more sensitive to losses of liberty and freedom — here, it was 'deep-state' professors trying to control their actions. You might think that conservatives, when assigned to the mask experiment, might be more resentful or more upset. We found nothing at all like that. So, I don't think putting on mask is a fundamental loss of freedom, except in the context of being told by Big Government to put on the mask for the purposes of safety to self and others.”

Stripped of today’s political and social significance, wearing masks didn’t interrupt social interaction for people of any political stripe in 2012. Indeed, the authors conclude, “The data have direct public health and policy implications — wearing masks does not end normalcy.”

“What do masks really do to social interactions? Well, at least for the everyday kind of interactions, you know, talking to somebody at the checkout counter, the grocery store, at the gas station or walking around — everyday kind of stuff with stranger interactions — masks just don't really do much at all in our setting,” Crandall said. “The question is, ‘What does masking up do?’ Aside from the underlying political effects, the answer seems to be not very much. Look, if you put on a mask and you go out on a first date, that's going to be more troublesome. But for most of the everyday interactions, which I think our experiment models, where you go talk to somebody about something not so important, we find masking isn’t anywhere near as disruptive as some people think — and that's really the good news.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Applied Social Psychology

DOI

10.1111/jasp.12918 

Elevated cholesterol found in GenX Exposure Study participants

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

In a new paper detailing findings from North Carolina State University’s GenX Exposure Study, researchers found that elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were associated with higher total cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol in participants’ blood. They also found that the legacy PFAS chemicals PFOS and PFNA were most strongly associated with elevated cholesterol compared to the other chemicals, and that the effects were more pronounced in older people.

“Previous studies had established links between PFAS and elevated cholesterol,” says Jane Hoppin, professor of biological sciences, director of NC State’s Center for Human Health and the Environment (CHHE), member of NC State’s Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS, and corresponding author of the paper describing the work. “However, most of the previous work had focused on PFOA and PFOS, though we know that people are exposed to many other chemicals in the PFAS family. So we wanted to look not just at legacy PFAS, but also at certain fluoroethers, a family of chemicals that include GenX and that have similar chemical structure to PFAS.”

The blood samples came from 344 Wilmington residents (289 adults and 55 children) across two sampling efforts in November 2017 and May 2018.

The samples were analyzed to measure levels of legacy PFAS, fluoroethers, and lipid measures (which include total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides). The blood samples showed high levels of legacy PFAS as well as three new fluoroether PFAS in the blood of nearly all participants. The chemical that started the study investigation, GenX, was not detected. Later research showed that this chemical only lasts in blood a very short time.

Because cholesterol levels can be affected by fasting and fasting was not required of participants, the researchers focused primarily at levels of non-HDL cholesterol, which are reliable regardless of fasting status. Additionally, the researchers took variables such as participant BMI, age, gender, race/ethnicity, and smoking status into account when assessing the relationship between chemical levels and cholesterol.

They also looked at whether the relationship between chemicals and cholesterol differed by age of participant.

They found that the relationship between the legacy PFAS chemicals PFOS and PFOA and cholesterol increased with age and was strongest for participants 63 years and older. For participants under age 18, there were no associations between chemical exposure and cholesterol.

For fluoroether compounds, higher blood levels of Nafion byproduct 2 and PFO5DoA were associated with higher levels of HDL cholesterol, but not non-HDL cholesterol.

“This is the first health study from the GenX Exposure Study,” Hoppin says. “Given the unique PFAS exposure of our participants, we were able to evaluate fluoroethers in terms of their effects on cholesterol levels. This work adds to the body of evidence between PFAS exposure and adverse health outcomes.”

The work appears in Environmental Health Perspectives and was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS; 1R21ES029353; P42 ES031009), the Center for Human Health and the Environment at NC State (P30ES025128), and the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.

-peake-

Note to editors: An abstract follows.

“Drinking-water associated PFAS and fluoroethers and lipid outcomes in the GenX Exposure Study”

DOI: 10.1289/EHP11033

Authors: Emma M. Rosen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Nadine Kotlarz, Detlef R.U. Knappe, Jane Hoppin, North Carolina State University; C. Suzanne Lea, David N. Collier, East Carolina University; David B. Richardson, University of California Irvine
Published: Sept. 7, 2020 in Environmental Health Perspectives

Abstract:
Background: Residents of Wilmington, NC were exposed to drinking water contaminated by fluoroethers and legacy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), with fluoroether exposure occurring from 1980-2017. PFOA and PFOS have previously been associated with metabolic dysfunction; however, few prior studies have examined associations between other PFAS and lipid levels.
Objectives: We measured the association between serum fluoroether and legacy PFAS levels and various cholesterol outcomes.
Methods: Participants in the GenX Exposure Study contributed non-fasting blood samples in November 2017 and May 2018 that were analyzed for 20 PFAS (10 legacy, 10 fluoroethers) and serum lipids (total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein [LDL], high-density lipoprotein [HDL], triglycerides) and calculated non-HDL cholesterol. We estimated covariate-adjusted associations between quartiles of exposure to each of the PFAS measures (as well as the summed concentrations of legacy PFAS, fluoroethers, and all 10 targeted PFAS) and lipid outcomes by fitting inverse probability of treatment weighted linear regressions.
Results: In this cross-sectional study of 326 participants (age range 6-86 years), eight PFAS were detected in >50% of the population. For PFOS and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), non-HDL cholesterol was approximately 5 mg/dL higher per exposure quartile increase: (PFOS: 4.89 [95% CI: 0.10, 9.68], PFNA: 5.25 [95% CI: 0.39, 10.1]) while total cholesterol was approximately 6 mg/dL higher per quartile (PFOS: 5.71 [95% CI: 0.38, 11.0], PFNA: 5.92 [95% CI: 0.19, 11.7]). In age-stratified analyses, associations were strongest among the oldest participants. Two fluoroethers were associated with higher HDL, while other fluoroether compounds were not associated with serum lipid levels.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Health Perspectives

DOI

10.1289/EHP11033 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Drinking Water–Associated PFAS and Fluoroethers and Lipid Outcomes in the GenX Exposure Study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Sep-2022

As threats to the US power grid surge, WVU professor develops advanced solutions for human-machine coordination

Grant and Award Announcement

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: WVU LANE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING STUDENTS PARTHA SARKER, PAROMA CHATTERJEE AND JANNATUL ADAN, DISCUSS A POWER GRID SIMULATION PROJECT LED BY ANURAG SRIVASTAVA, PROFESSOR AND DEPARTMENT CHAIR, IN THE GOLAB. view more 

CREDIT: WVU PHOTO/BRIAN PERSINGER

The electrical grid faces a mounting barrage of threats that could trigger a butterfly effect – floods, superstorms, heat waves, cyberattacks, not to mention its own ballooning complexity and size – that the nation is unprepared to handle, according to one West Virginia University scientist.

But Anurag Srivastava,  professor and chair of the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, has plans to prevent and respond to potential power grid failures, thanks to a pair of National Science Foundation-funded research projects.

“In the grid, we have the butterfly effect,” Srivastava said. “This means that if a butterfly flutters its wings in Florida, that will cause a windstorm in Connecticut because things are synchronously connected, like dominos. In the power grid, states like Florida, Connecticut, Illinois and West Virginia are all part of the eastern interconnection and linked together. 

“If a big event happens in the Deep South, it is going to cause a problem up north. To stop that, we need to detect the problem area as soon as possible and gracefully separate that part out so the disturbance does not propagate through the whole.”

With more than $1.3 million in combined funding, Srivastava and researchers are tackling two convergent studies aiming to transform power grid crisis response. One includes a major grant from the NSF’s Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier program and the other is a joint project grant awarded by the NSF and the German Research Foundation.

One study focuses on aDaptioN: a software that’s capable of working with non-centralized information from all over the grid to make, in some cases, its own decisions about the right response to a problem in the power network. The other study develops an advanced tool to train human grid operators to cope with vast quantities of information and to track whether they’re entering information overload. 

Srivastava’s research will enable flexible, precise, and rapid responses from both network infrastructures and human grid operators in crisis situations. It starts with his development of the aDaptioN software. The name refers to “data-driven secure holonic control and optimization for the networked cyber-physical system.” 

When faced with a potential threat, the aDaptioN software will autonomously isolate and quarantine problematic portions of the grid, preventing those sections from spreading chaos. In addition, aDaptioN will use distributed intelligence sharing to protect against cyberattacks, sealing a major hole in national security preparedness. 

The U.S. grid is far more complicated than it was a few decades ago, something Srivastava attributes to the competitive electricity market created in the late 1990s and to the rise in small-scale power sources like home solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations, both of which have tangled the paths power takes from plant to substation to consumer. 

Intelligently controlling the tidal wave of information produced at multiple points across the grid would be a game changer, and while aDaptioN is part of making that happen, there’s another, equally crucial step. Srivastava’s team will create the Grid Operation Lab in Evansdale, a state-of-the-art cyber-physical-human system simulation lab that will be a functioning, scaled model of a power grid control room. 

Mohammed Mustafa Hussain, a computer science graduate student, runs a power grid crisis simulation at the WVU Engineering Research Building.

CREDIT

WVU Photo/Brian Persinger

In GOLab, about 60 power-engineering students will play the parts of control operators in simulated crisis scenarios. Advanced operational tools will feed them information. If they receive too much information, they won’t be able to process it effectively. If they receive too little, they’ll make the wrong calls. 

In a training and testing process inspired by spacecraft flight simulators, the operators will be hooked up to and surrounded by sensors that gauge their cognitive performance by tracking their skin’s electrical responses and eye movements. Srivastava and his team will ascertain the conditions under which an operator’s alertness diminishes and fatigue sets in.

Grid operators must maintain an unrelenting intensity of focus on vast streams of data. To maintain continuity of awareness, Srivastava said, operators typically work 12-hour shifts. Each operator works at a specific desk with a unique responsibility. 

“Someone may focus on the flow of power from state to state,” Srivastava said, “while someone focuses on voltage levels. Someone else is constantly doing what we call ‘security analysis’ – running ‘what if?’ scenarios. They all need to talk to each other and their neighbors in other control rooms any time they see a problem.”

As the operators enact their roles in the simulations, Srivastava will track their responses to the flow of information. He’ll fine-tune the tracking and analysis on the students first, then bring in 30 experienced professional operators to work with collaborators and validate the technology. 

Whether it’s a wildfire, cyberattack, fuel supply shortage or winter storm, Srivastava knows the next U.S. power grid crisis will trigger a high-speed cascade of alarms, cross-communications, automated shutdowns and uncoordinated individual responses. That scenario will play out very differently, he believes, once his research has led control grid operators to the eye of the information storm.

How marine predators find food hot spots in open ocean “deserts”

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution study suggests relationship between predator foraging and the ocean’s “internal weather” in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION

 

IMAGE: THE STRIPED MARLIN (KAJIKIA AUDAX) IS A SPECIES OF BILLFISH THAT IS OVERFISHED IN THE NORTH PACIFIC. A NEW STUDY CO-LED BY WHOI FINDS THAT MARINE PREDATORS, LIKE THE STRIPED MARLIN, AGGREGATE IN ANTICYCLONIC, CLOCKWISE-ROTATING OCEAN EDDIES TO FEED. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE CREDIT: PAT FORD (PAT FORD PHOTOGRAPHY)

Woods Hole, MA (September 7, 2022) – A new study led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (UW APL) finds that marine predators, such as tunas, billfishes and sharks, aggregate in anticyclonic, clockwise-rotating ocean eddies (mobile, coherent bodies of water). As these anticyclonic eddies move throughout the open ocean, the study suggests that the predators are also moving with them, foraging on the high deep-ocean biomass contained within.

The findings were published today in Nature.

“We discovered that anticyclonic eddies - rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere - were associated with increased pelagic predator catch compared with eddies rotating counter-clockwise and regions outside eddies,” said Dr. Martin Arostegui, WHOI postdoctoral scholar and paper lead-author. “Increased predator abundance in these eddies is probably driven by predator selection for habitats hosting better feeding opportunities.”

The study included collaborators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. It focused on more than 20 years of commercial fishery and satellite data collected from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre - a vast region that is nutrient-poor but supports predator fishes that are central to the economic and food security of Pacific Islands nations and communities.

The research team assessed an ecologically diverse community of predators varying in latitudes, ocean depths, and physiologies (cold vs. warm-blooded).

Although there is a growing body of research showing that diverse predators associate with eddies, this is the first study to focus on the subtropical gyre - which is the largest ecosystem on Earth. The research team was able to investigate predator catch patterns with respect to the eddies, concluding that eddies influence open ocean ecosystems from the bottom to the top of the food chain. This discovery suggests a fundamental relationship between predator foraging opportunities and the underlying physics of the ocean.

“The idea that these eddies contain more food means they’re serving as mobile hotspots in the ocean desert that predators encounter, target and stay in to feed,” said Arostegui.

Scientists have long studied isolated predator behaviors in other regions of the ocean, tagging animals and tracking their dive patterns to food-rich ocean layers, such as the ocean twilight zone (mesopelagic); but an understanding of how eddies influence behavior of open ocean predators, specifically in food-scarce areas like subtropical gyres should inform effective management of these species, their ecosystems and dependent fisheries.

This study’s findings highlight the connection between the surface and deep ocean, which must be considered in impact assessments of future deep-sea industries. As deep-sea prey fisheries continue to expand, there comes the need for more information on deep-sea ecology, particularly how much deep-prey biomass can be harvested by fisheries without negatively affecting dependent predators or the ocean's ability to store carbon and regulate the climate. A better understanding of the ecosystem services provided by the deep ocean via eddies, particularly with respect to predator fisheries, will help inform responsible use of deep-ocean resources.

“The ocean benefits predators, which then benefit humans as a food source,” Arostegui said. “Harvesting the food that our food eats, is something we need to understand in order to ensure the methods are sustainable for both the prey and the predators that rely on them. That is critical to ensuring both ocean health and human wellbeing as we continue to rely on these animals for food.”

  

This conceptual figure shows predator and prey abundance inside and outside of eddies within the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. This region is xknown to be nutrient-poor but supports predator fishes that are central to the economic and food security of the surrounding communities. The figure shows the distribution of prey biomass at varying depths from day to night, showcasing that abundant prey in anticyclonic eddies attract diverse open ocean predators to aggregate in these features.

CREDIT

Fish illustrations: Les Gallagher (Fishpics® & IMAR-DOP, University of the Azores)

About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu.

Rutgers study indicates who faces highest risk of HPV infection and anal cancer

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Previous sexually transmitted infections and more sexual partners predict new human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in men who have sex with men, other cisgender sexual minority men and transgender women, according to a Rutgers study.

“Neither of those findings is unexpected, but they’re both important,” said Caleb LoSchiavo, lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Men’s Health and a doctoral research assistant at the Rutgers Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS). “Anal HPV infections cause about 90 percent of all anal cancers, and high infection levels among these groups lead to elevated cancer rates. We are just now doing the work to analyze what’s actually happening so we can design effective intervention strategies.”

Previous studies have noted high rates of HPV infection among sexual minority men and transgender women, but the new study followed 137 of them – all young residents of New York City – for up to five years to see which factors predicted new infections with those strains of HPV that create a high risk of anal cancer (hrHPV).

All patients underwent testing on three occasions: when they entered the study, roughly two years later and about two years after the first follow-up visit.

At the initial visit, 31.6 percent of patients tested positive for an anal hrHPV infection. The two subsequent visits found new hrHPV infections in 27 percent and 29.9 percent of patients. Over the course of the study, 57.7 percent of participants tested positive for at least one strain of hrHPV at one or more study visits while 42.3 percent never tested positive.

“This study illustrates the urgent need for more intervention,” LoSchiavo said. “HPV vaccination could prevent these infections, but vaccination is rare in this population because it was originally approved exclusively for young women and is still associated by patients and medical providers alike as a way to prevent cervical cancer in women. That has to change.”

Vaccination can’t treat existing HPV cases, and no other treatments exist, but screening is still important, LoSchiavo said.

“People need to know if they have high-risk HPV so they can opt in for extra cancer screening,” LoSchiavo said. “Extra screening catches problems early, allows doctors to remove growths before they become cancerous, and saves lives.”

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Men s Health

DOI

10.1177/15579883221119084 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Predictors of Anal High-Risk HPV Infection Across Time in a Cohort of Young Adult Sexual Minority Men and Transgender Women in New York City, 2015–2020

COI STATEMENT

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Dr. Halkitis and Dr. Krause have received research funding from Merck, the commercial manufacturer of the Gardasil HPV vaccine. The remaining author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Growing numbers of Native American households in Nevada face plumbing poverty, water quality problems

New study analyzes trends, opportunities, and challenges related to water security in Nevada’s Native American communities

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DESERT RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: TYPES OF SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT VIOLATIONS DOCUMENTED BY THE EPA FOR PUBLIC WATER SYSTEMS SERVING NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN NEVADA, 2005-2020. view more 

CREDIT: ERICK BANDALA, DRI

A growing number of Native American households in Nevada have no access to indoor plumbing, a condition known as “plumbing poverty,” according to a new study by a team from DRI and the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities.

The study assesses trends and challenges associated with water security (reliable access to a sufficient quantity of safe, clean water) in Native American households and communities of Nevada and also found a concerning increase in the number of Safe Drinking Water Act violations during the last 15 years.

Native American communities in the Western U.S., including Nevada, are particularly vulnerable to water security challenges because of factors including population growth, climate change, drought, and water rights. In rural areas, aging or absent water infrastructure creates additional challenges.

In this study, the research team used U.S. Census microdata on household plumbing characteristics to learn about the access of Native American community members to “complete plumbing facilities,” including piped water (hot and cold), a flush toilet, and a bathtub or shower. They also used water quality reports from the Environmental Protection Agency to learn about drinking water sources and health violations.

According to their results, during the 30-year time period from 1990-2019, an average of 0.67 percent of Native American households in Nevada lacked complete indoor plumbing – higher than the national average of 0.4 percent. Their findings show a consistent increase in the lack of access to plumbing over the last few decades, with more than 20,000 people affected in 2019.

“Previous studies have found that Native American households are more likely to lack complete indoor plumbing than other households in the U.S., and our results show a similar trend here in Nevada,” said lead author Erick Bandala, Ph.D., assistant research professor of environmental science at DRI. “This can create quality of life problems, for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lack of indoor plumbing could have prevented basic health measures like hand-washing.”

Plumbing poverty may correlate with other types of poverty. Analysis by the study team showed that as the number of people living in a household increased, access to complete plumbing decreased significantly, in agreement with other studies.

Study findings also showed a significant increase in the number of Safe Drinking Water Act violations in water facilities serving Native American Communities in Nevada from 2005 to 2020. The most common health-based violations included presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), presence of coliform bacteria, and presence of inorganic chemicals.

“Water accessibility, reliability, and quality are major challenges for Native American communities in Nevada and throughout the Southwest,” said coauthor Maureen McCarthy, Ph.D., research professor of environmental science and director of the Native Climate project at DRI.

The study authors hope that their findings are useful to decision-makers and members of the general public who may not be aware that plumbing poverty and water quality are significant problems in Nevada.

 

More information:

The full study, “Assessing the effect of extreme heat on workforce health in the southwestern USA,” is available from the International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901122002179?dgcid=author

 

This project was funded by the General Frederick West Lander Endowment at DRI. Study authors included Erick Bandala (DRI), Maureen McCarthy (DRI), and Nancy Brune (DRI, formerly of the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities).

 

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About DRI

The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.

 

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Policy

DOI

10.1016/j.envsci.2022.07.009 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Water security in native American communities of Nevada