Recently in Environment Category

• Fun in the sun. Missouri S&T's entry in this year's Solar Decathlon -- dubbed Team Missouri, since it's a joint venture with students from the University of Missouri-Columbia -- is the fourth solar-powered home built by S&T students. Our campus is one of only two universities in the world to have entered each of the four Solar Decathlons (in 2002, 2005, 2007 and this year). Right now, our team is in ninth place. Keep track of S&T's/MU's progress via the Solar Decathlon's Team Missouri page, or follow along at the Experience This! blog.

• Workin' in a coal mine. This is old news for some of us on campus, but we're glad to see more interest in David Summers' work to turn abandoned underground mines into farms for biodiesel feedstock. Summers, a Curators' Professor of mining engineering, sees a big future in growing algae in underground mines.

• Waving the white flag. While some of us are still bitter about the St. Louis Cardinals' early departure from post-season play, at least the team made it to the post-season. Many teams with no chance of making the playoffs give up their star performers in hopes of a better chance in the future. Those so-called white-flag trades are the subject of some interesting research by Samantha Schussele, a nuclear engineering major who loves baseball. She's working with Michael Davis of the S&T economics department on her statistical analysis of how white-flag trades affect attendance.

• Frontiers of engineering. Congratulations to Sahra Sedigh, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, who has been selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering's Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium. She is one of 49 young engineering researchers and teachers who will come together "to become a major force in identifying, recognizing and promulgating advances and innovations in order to build a strong intellectual infrastructure and commitment to 21st-century engineering education," says NAE President Charles N. Vest. It's great to have a Missouri S&T faculty member involved in this important national discussion.

• Off to Estonia. Congratulations, too, to Eric Showalter, a lecturer in civil, architectural and environmental engineering, who is heading to Estonia on a Fulbright scholarship. Keep up with Eric's adventures by following his blog.

But I digress. My point is this - most of us living in the U.S. are fortunate to have a system for our wastewater to be treated, whether it be through treatment plants or septic tanks. But that's not how it works at many of our forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Daily convoys of more than 20 trucks are used to supply a base with fuel or water and dispose of wastewater and solid waste.

But Jianmin Wang, a professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri S&T, has an idea that could change that. His system, housed inside a shipping container, is good that it could be deployed anywhere - from small, rural communities to forward operating bases, like those in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's a pretty cool system that's low power, low maintenance and highly efficient.

Cheaper, better and faster - who knew you could get all three?

Most environmental engineering students are concerned about conditions on Earth. Nicholas Jarnagin, a senior in environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, is worried about pollution in space.

Specifically, Jarnagin is concerned with human-made pollution that is locked in orbit around the Earth -- everything from pieces of old satellites to frozen rocket fuel and jettisoned human waste.

Read the full story.

-- Brandi Clark, a senior in chemistry, plans to test jars of baby food to see if, perhaps, they contain harmful levels of mercury. Clark, who plans to go on to study environmental engineering in graduate school, is working on the project with Dr. Jianmin Wang, an assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at S&T.

Similar studies have been conducted on products found to contain arsenic and lead. Clark and Wang will test fruits, rice and meats in different brands of baby food. Clark says she also wants to test organic baby food. The results should be available next semester.

NOTE: If something bad does turn out to be in baby food, look for people to link the findings to the explosion in autism cases. But that's probably getting WAY ahead of ourselves (and we're not speaking for Clark or Wang here). Oh, and where is baby food produced? Where are the jars made? Where does the food come from? We've always wondered how the heck they make that stuff.  

-- Elsewhere, the S&T EcoCar Team just found out that they they have been selected to receive a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain as part of the Eco-Car Challenge.

Missouri S&T is one of 17 universities chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to compete in the three-year competition. Each team will re-engineer a new Saturn VUE so that it has improved fuel economy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, while retaining the car's performance and consumer appeal.

The teams will incorporate lightweight materials into the vehicles, improve aerodynamics and utilize alternative fuels like ethanol and hydrogen.

Strategies for each team will depend upon the specific task they are assigned. Only one other team in the competition, a team from the University of Waterloo in Canada, will be working with a hydrogen fuel cell solution.

Other teams in the challenge will be working with fully electric, range-extended electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid propulsion systems.

More later.

Since today is Blog Action Day 2008 and this year's theme is poverty, we thought it would be a good time to remind readers about how Missouri S&T students and researchers are doing their part to improve living conditions around the globe. From students traveling abroad to build latrines, design sewer systems and rebuild hurricane-stricken areas to researchers developing alternative energy sources to alumni developing innovative and inexpensive ways to thresh grain in impoverished areas, Missouri S&T's people are helping to make the world a better place.

Algae could be Missouri's newest power plant, if a research project by Missouri S&T, Lincoln University and two Missouri electric cooperatives proves effective.

The research project, unveiled today at a press conference in Jefferson City, Mo., involves capturing CO2 emissions from power plants to grow algae, which in turn would be converted into biofuel. Dr. Paul Nam, assistant professor of chemistry, is leading Missouri S&T's part of the project.

Forbes and the Kansas City Star have the story, and Associated Electric Cooperative Inc has the official news release. Central Electric Power Cooperative is also funding the research, which will be based at Central's Chamois Power Plant east of Jefferson City on the Missouri River.

According to the news release, staff members at the Chamois plant have been creating power using biomass materials for more than five years. The plant has used corn cobs, walnut shells and old railroad ties to produce power. These days, the Chamois staff is experimenting with burning turkey processing sludge with coal to produce electricity.

A fleet of hydrogen-fueled cars will cruise into town on Tuesday, Aug. 19, as part of a cross-country road trip sponsored by the U.S. Energy and Transportation departments, several automakers, the National Hydrogen Association, and others. The hydrogen cars will be on display at Missouri's first hydrogen fueling station, which is located on Missouri S&T's E-Cubed (energy, environment and education) Commons.

The event begins at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the site, 900 Collegiate Blvd. In conjunction with the tour, Missouri S&T will officially cut the ribbon for the fueling station and show off the campus's two Ford H2ICE (hydrogen internal combustion engine) buses used to shuttle passengers around Rolla and to and from Fort Leonard Wood. More information about the event is in the official news release.