With severe weather and natural disasters becoming more intense in a changing climate, a group of Georgia Tech researchers studied how recovery, guided by common policies from FEMA and industry, varies with respect to the severity of disruptive events. The study, a collaboration with National Grid, used large-scale data analytics to look at nine years of power failure data to gain insight on how quickly energy grids come back online for customers.
A $1 million award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will help researchers in Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering develop tactics to protect children from harmful emissions from controlled wildland burns. The initiative will provide equipment and new communications approaches in middle and high schools in Albany and Columbus, Ga., and Phenix City, Ala.
Earth’s average surface temperature has risen approximately 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s — most of that rise in the past 40 years, according to NASA. That’s due in large part to the increase of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, caused by human activity. This has led oceans to warm, ice sheets to melt, and sea levels to rise faster — and it has accelerated the frequency of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes.
Georgia Tech and Georgia Power celebrated the opening of a 1.4-megawatt microgrid in Tech Square with a ribbon-cutting on Wednesday, June 16. The microgrid is located at Spring and Fifth Streets in Atlanta. This project, made possible through a longstanding partnership between Georgia Power and Georgia Tech, will help power the larger local grid in Midtown, while minimizing environmental impact.
Georgia Tech recently achieved a STARS silver rating by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). STARS stands for Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System and is awarded based upon measured success in five key areas of sustainability in higher education – Academics, Engagement, Operations, Planning and Administration, and Innovation and Leadership. The rating system helps benchmark achievements and identify opportunities where faculty, administrators, staff, and students can be effective change agents.
Earth’s average surface temperature has risen approximately 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s — most of that rise in the past 40 years, according to NASA. That’s due in large part to the increase of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, caused by human activity. This has led oceans to warm, ice sheets to melt, and sea levels to rise faster — and it has accelerated the frequency of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes.
The U.S. Department of Energy today announced Georgia Tech Provost Rafael Bras has been appointed to the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB). The nineteen member board comprised of scientists, business executives, academics and former government officials will serve as an independent advisory committee to Energy Secretary Moniz. Read the full announcement >
Transportation officials and researchers from several states gathered at Georgia Tech on Aug. 29 to review the results of the RS-GAMS2 Project, a 2-year, $1.9 million research enterprise that promises to revolutionize the way our nation’s roads are inventoried, managed, and maintained.
To the delight of its principal investigator, CEE’s Dr. James Tsai, this research will also change the way civil engineers do their work.
For owners of delivery truck fleets who may be trying to decide between electric or diesel vehicles, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are offering some advice: comparisons of the energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and total cost of ownership for the medium-duty vehicles.
The advantages of electric versus diesel depend largely on how the trucks will be used – the frequency of stops and average speeds – and the source of electricity for charging batteries. In city driving with frequent stops, the electric trucks clearly outperform diesel vehicles.
One of the most controversial issues emerging from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is the failure of global climate models to predict a hiatus in warming of global surface temperatures since 1998. Several ideas have been put forward to explain this hiatus, including what the IPCC refers to as ‘unpredictable climate variability’ that is associated with large-scale circulation regimes in the atmosphere and ocean. The most familiar of these regimes is El Niño/La Niña, which are parts of an oscillation in the ocean-atmosphere system.