Growing Impact
39 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsGrowing Impact explores cutting-edge projects of Penn State researchers and scientists who are solving some of the world's most challenging energy and environmental issues.
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Episodes
Low-cost PFAS filtration
March 01, 2024 06:00 - 30 minutes - 42.8 MBFor decades, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have been a staple in products from detergents to cosmetics, making items more durable and resistant to water and stains. However, the creation and use of these "forever chemicals" is not without consequences. They persist in the environment and are now ubiquitous, even in our drinking water. Emerging evidence links PFAS exposure to significant health risks, prompting a team of researchers to evaluate affordable filtration technology. Th...
Community-powered solar farming
February 01, 2024 06:00 - 35 minutes - 32.7 MBSolar energy's surge, driven by cost efficiency and climate change urgency, is prompting a rapid transition to a renewable energy source with substantial land requirements. This trend parallels past land rushes, like the contentious Marcellus Shale gas movement, triggering reservations among farmers as well as rural citizens and landowners. To inform just and sustainable rural land use with solar, a research team is working in rural communities to determine the potential for harmonious coexis...
Climate, Crops, and the Colorado River
January 01, 2024 06:00 - 34 minutes - 47.1 MBThe Colorado River passes through five states on its way to Mexico, supplying water to municipalities, farms, and industry. It supports more than a trillion dollars in economic activity and supplies water to an estimated 40 million people. The overuse of the Colorado River and an extensive climate change-driven drought have significantly decreased the volume of the fifth largest river in the U.S. A research team is exploring how climate change and agricultural adaptation will affect water ava...
Contrails and Climate Change
December 01, 2023 06:00 - 37 minutes - 5 MBContrails, the cloud-like streaks left in the sky by jets, are artificial clouds that are similar in nature to natural cirrus clouds, the thin, high-altitude clouds that spread across the sky in wispy fingers. Contrails, like cirrus clouds and unlike thicker, lower-altitude clouds, can allow a considerable amount of solar radiation to penetrate to the Earth's surface, warming the planet. Contrails can also trap that energy in the Earth's atmosphere, increasing the warming effect. As aviation ...
Restoring Malawi's Forests
November 01, 2023 05:00 - 38 minutes - 5 MBMalawi, like many countries in Africa, is facing environmental challenges including deforestation, soil erosion, and unsustainable farming practices. However, restoring the land is much more complex than planting additional trees. The degradation of the land is closely related to the socio-economic status of the people of Malawi, who are connected to the land through agriculture as well as social, cultural, and religious traditions. While Malawi has pledged to restore degraded lands, it is no...
Solar-Powered Water Treatment
October 01, 2023 05:00 - 48 minutes - 5 MBWastewater treatment plants serve approximately 75% of Americans—more than 248 million people. However, many people do not recognize the energy burden these facilities create, which can be more than 30% of a municipality's energy bill. Most of this energy comes from fossil fuels. With rising energy costs and the worsening climate crisis, some wastewater treatment plants have started using solar energy. Because solar adoption at wastewater treatment plants is still relatively new, there is lit...
Upcycling Plastics with Fungi
September 01, 2023 10:00 - 45 minutes - 5 MBPlastic is part of virtually every aspect of our lives. However, our relationship with this hydrocarbon-based material is complex. As much as we use plastic, it often gets a bad rap. Images of plastic bottles and plastic bags clogging waterways and nightmarish tales of microplastics invading our food supply make it is easy to point the finger at plastic as the villain. Nonetheless, it seems that plastic will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Thus, it is crucial to find better...
Growing Impact: Season 4
August 01, 2023 12:15 - 2 minutes - 5 MBIn season four, Growing Impact is expanding: more team members from different disciplines and deeper conversations around the challenges their project is addressing, the inspiration that turned an idea into a project, and the solutions that may arise from these interdisciplinary researchers.
Flooding, Addiction, and Resilience
July 01, 2023 05:00 - 28 minutes - 5 MBSubstance use is similar to extreme weather due to climate change in multiple ways. Both have had impacts in rural towns and big cities. Both can impact any socio-economic class. Both are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and both can damage lives. Another connection is the impact of one on the other, specifically, how extreme weather, like flooding, can impact a community's ability to support those afflicted with substance use disorder.
Urban embodied carbon
June 01, 2023 12:00 - 11 minutes - 5 MBEvery material that makes up a building, be it steel, concrete, wood, or plastic, has a greenhouse gas emission associated with it. This is called embodied carbon, and calculating the amount of GHG for one building is achievable. However, calculating that number for an entire city is still a challenge. To assist policymakers to better manage their city's carbon emissions, a team of researchers is developing a methodology to calculate embodied carbon for an entire city.
Cities cooled by trees
May 01, 2023 12:00 - 23 minutes - 5 MBAs cities are built, a lot of vegetation is replaced with building materials such as concrete and brick. These materials absorb the sun's heat and then radiate it back into the atmosphere. This leads to urban heat islands where cities are much hotter than the surrounding areas. But trees offer shade and cooling, reducing the temperature in cities. So, what is stopping cities from planting more trees? That is what one research team is investigating.
Climate and health policy solutions
April 01, 2023 05:00 - 23 minutes - 32.5 MBCreating laws and policies informed by science and facts was not always the primary method used by legislators and policymakers. Until around 2000, policies were often based on a policymaker's intuition. Today, there are concerted efforts to get vetted, fact-based scientific research on numerous topics into the hands of policymakers. One of those topics is climate change and its impacts on human health. Climate change presents a huge array of health problems, and helping policymakers know how...
Battery energy from waste heat
March 01, 2023 13:00 - 18 minutes - 25.4 MBWaste heat has been a challenge that scientists and engineers have been pondering for decades. What can be done with this lost energy and can it be harnessed in a useful way? As combustion and technology improved, the percentage of waste heat has decreased, but it is estimated that up to 50% of all industrial energy is lost through waste heat. If that heat could captured or used in a meaningful way, society would move closer to a circular economy. While Derek Hall and his team explored how di...
Fuels from waste
February 01, 2023 14:00 - 22 minutes - 30.8 MBCombustible fuels have been around ever since humans realized that they could burn wood. Over time, we discovered new energy sources—fossil fuels, which still dominate the world’s energy portfolio. But what if we could find another fuel source, one that was abundant, easy to procure, and people were happy to give it away? Something like municipal or agricultural waste? One fuel, called hydrochar, which is a proposed replacement for coal, can be made in a laboratory from waste using water and ...
Cleaner community air
January 01, 2023 15:00 - 19 minutes - 26.2 MBA lot of our lives is impacted by the air we breathe, both inside and outside. And where we live is an important factor in this equation. For those living in the Pittsburgh area, it is likely that they could be impacted by poor air quality related to large industrial sites that dot the western Pennsylvania landscape. To better understand the air quality concerns of this region and how it's impacted by complex terrain, a team of interdisciplinary researchers is working closely with communities...
The art of renewable energy
December 01, 2022 06:00 - 14 minutes - 19.8 MBAs Mihyun Kang sees it, if renewable energy is the future, then it should be engaging and appealing. She combined that idea with her passion for nature and sustainability to develop art installation concepts that she hopes to bring to life throughout Pennsylvania, in an effort to bring rationally sound and emotionally compelling solutions to climate change.
Farms of the future
November 01, 2022 05:00 - 20 minutes - 27.9 MBWhat does it take to get a piece of steak or chicken to someone's table? The amount of time, energy, water, land, and the resulting carbon footprint may be surprising. Today, scientists are exploring the farms of the future, including the generation of meat products through cellular agriculture. These animal-based proteins have plenty of pros, including sustainable production, and groups, ranging from U.S. government to the meat industry, are investigating the future of cellular agriculture.
Climate signals from wetlands
October 01, 2022 05:00 - 15 minutes - 21.9 MBWetlands are some of the richest ecosystems in the world. They support an extensive variety of plants and animals, from the smallest of microbes to the largest of mammals. Wetlands also filter and protect water, improving its quality. However, as climate change intensifies, wetlands are threatened by changes in precipitation, both too much and too little. They also may provide early signals of climate change.
Food-energy-water dynamics
September 01, 2022 05:00 - 23 minutes - 31.6 MBThe groundwater level in India is consistently dropping year to year. In fact, India uses more groundwater than any country in the world. However, it is also a nation that lacks water availability, and its population continues to grow. A team of researchers is analyzing how an Indian government policy aimed at installing and using solar irrigation pumps in agriculture may further lower groundwater levels, impact energy use, and help or hinder food production in India.
In pursuit of energy equity
August 01, 2022 04:00 - 21 minutes - 29.4 MBCleveland, like many cities, aims to become greener in the coming decades by decarbonizing infrastructure and using renewable energy. However, implementing solutions has its challenges, from technological to financial. Add to this the challenges of ensuring equity, and the situation gets even more complex.
Vanishing tree
July 01, 2022 13:00 - 22 minutes - 31.1 MBWhat happens to a community or a livelihood when a key resource disappears? In Southwest Madagascar, the farafatse tree, a tree of great importance in that region, appears to be vanishing, and where it is traditionally found seems to be shifting. A team of researchers are investigating this phenomenon in concert with Malagasy communities to identify causes and potential risks for plant life more broadly.
Water's plastic problem
June 01, 2022 16:00 - 19 minutes - 26.4 MBPlastic of all shapes and sizes is showing up in bodies of water around the world, including microplastics, which are 5mm or less in size. But how these tiny pieces of plastic move through water and what impacts that movement is still a bit of a mystery. This includes biofilms, the thin layers of organisms that build up on material found in water.
When the levee breaks
May 01, 2022 05:00 - 19 minutes - 26.7 MBA team of researchers seeks to better understand the social effects associated with flooding, such as whether racial and ethnic minorities, children, and those with low income suffer the most.
Healthy habitat hurdles
April 01, 2022 13:00 - 16 minutes - 22.5 MBMelissa Bopp and her colleagues examine the role of the built and natural environments and their influence on physical activity, healthy eating, and air quality in the Mon Valley, an area that has seen steady economic decline since the departure of the steel industry in the late 20th century.
One Health
March 01, 2022 06:00 - 20 minutes - 28.7 MBA transdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers is exploring how One Health, an approach that recognizes the interconnectedness among human health, ecosystem health, and animal health, may be able to tackle complex health problems facing Pennsylvania.
Visualizing history's future
February 01, 2022 06:00 - 16 minutes - 23.1 MBAs sea-levels rise due to climate change, historical monuments and landscapes near bodies of water are at risk. A new research project will provide decision makers with information on what that could look like for their site. Specifically, the project is focused monuments and landscapes that are significant to African American, Indigenous, and other minority communities.
Got methane?
January 01, 2022 06:00 - 14 minutes - 19.3 MBThe latest episode of the Growing Impact podcast features a research team that is designing and building a biofiltration system that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, specifically methane and carbon dioxide.
Moving away from coal
December 01, 2021 05:00 - 17 minutes - 23.4 MBThis episode of Growing Impact features Emily Pakhtigian, assistant professor of public policy and the Jeffrey L. and Sharon D. Hyde-McCourtney Career Development Professor. On the podcast, she discusses her seed grant project, titled “Assessing Distributional Effects of Coal-Fired Power Plant Operations on Pollution and Health,” through which she and her colleagues are investigating how the transition away from coal-fired power plants is impacting the environment and health of communities in...
A cache of coastal carbon
November 01, 2021 05:00 - 17 minutes - 23.8 MBLisa Emili, an associate professor of physical geography and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, discusses her project titled “Coastal Carbon Dynamics in a Riparian Buffer Ecosystem, Lake Erie Basin,” which is investigating carbon accumulation in freshwater wetlands around the Great Lakes area. She and her team are interested in better understanding how these wetlands fit into the carbon cycle and how these areas can help impact climate change.
In-Tune lighting
October 01, 2021 05:00 - 17 minutes - 23.9 MBPenn State researchers, Julian Wang and Anne-Marie Chang, discuss their seed grant project that investigates how indoor lighting can be adjusted to save energy and positively impact human health.
In-Tune Lighting
October 01, 2021 05:00 - 17 minutes - 23.9 MBPenn State researchers, Julian Wang and Anne-Marie Chang, discuss their seed grant project that investigates how indoor lighting can be adjusted to save energy and positively impact human health.
Building with fungi
September 01, 2021 12:49 - 15 minutes - 21.3 MBAccording to reports, the building industry is responsible for a lot of the carbon emissions in the world, about 37% in the U.S. This includes the production of materials, construction, operation, and even deconstruction. Additionally, the world will need alternative building materials to keep up with the demand of the construction industry. In this episode of Growing Impact, we explore a seed grant project that looks to use mycelium, the root structure of fungi, as a renewable, biodegradabl...
Accelerating Renewable Energy
August 09, 2021 16:23 - 14 minutes - 19.2 MBSplitting water into hydrogen and oxygen requires a lot of energy. By introducing catalysts into the process, these renewable energy sources can be created more efficiently. The challenge is that these catalysts use precious metals and are expensive. Mauricio Terrones and Lauren Zarzar are working on a novel method to develop inexpensive and efficient catalysts to split water.
Accelerating renewable energy
August 01, 2021 16:23 - 14 minutes - 19.2 MBSplitting water into hydrogen and oxygen requires a lot of energy. By introducing catalysts into the process, these renewable energy sources can be created more efficiently. The challenge is that these catalysts use precious metals and are expensive. Mauricio Terrones and Lauren Zarzar are working on a novel method to develop inexpensive and efficient catalysts to split water.
A guide to decarbonization
July 01, 2021 12:49 - 16 minutes - 22.9 MBIn order for the world to meet the challenge of climate change, decarbonization and negative emissions must be part of the discussion. Wei Peng looks to provide policy and tech leadership with information on what decarbonization technology might be effective in the future and how to strategically employ it.
Unlocking a world of energy
June 01, 2021 13:41 - 13 minutes - 18.3 MBSome countries in Africa and Asia have been locked into contracts that prevent improvements to existing electricity systems. Mohamed Badissy and his team are examining these contracts to find ways that could make these systems more efficient, sustainable, and cleaner.
Wind energy's dirty secret
May 01, 2021 13:38 - 12 minutes - 17.5 MBSteve Chmely and Chris Costello discuss how wind energy has a dirty secret surrounding the wind turbine blades and their disposal. The research team is exploring materials to reduce the waste associated with the blades.
Green stormwater infrastructure
April 01, 2021 13:34 - 11 minutes - 15.8 MBGreen storm water infrastructure uses the power of plants and soils to improve water quality. More than that, Lauren McPhillips discusses how making stormwater infrastructure green is saving cities money, impacting environmental justice, and cooling urban heat islands with aesthetically pleasing gardens.
Climate change on the Hudson
February 01, 2021 14:31 - 12 minutes - 20.9 MBKirk French talks about his newest project, "Climate Change on the Hudson: A Century After Nanook." In the discussion, Kirk talks about the importance of documenting climate change through film and how revisiting "Nanook of the North" empowered the Inuit to tell their story, even in the face of COVID.