Zeroing in on black carbon may slow the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Cutting our overall use of fossil fuels has proved a daunting challenge, but it might be possible to get some relief from the effects of climate change by selectively reducing the particulate pollution we produce. Recent research suggests that if we can clean up diesel engines and primitive cookstoves in India and China, for example, that could delay the effects of greenhouse-gas buildup even if pollution from coal-fired power plants persists. A study released last week concludes that if every country were to do what California has done in the last couple of decades to clean up diesel emissions, it would slow down global warming by 15 percent. Reducing similar pollution from sources such as ships and cookstoves—which weren’t included in the study—could help even more.
Compact unmanned aerial vehicles will perform many valuable jobs if aviation regulations allow them to operate commercially.
I don’t use the word “drone,” which originally referred to remotely piloted planes used for anti-aircraft target practice and is now closely associated with long-range surveillance and strike vehicles operated by the military (see “The World as Free-Fire Zone”). But I do envision wider use of aircraft with sensors, perception, and intelligence. I call them “flying robots.”
Zeroing in on black carbon may slow the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Cutting our overall use of fossil fuels has proved a daunting challenge, but it might be possible to get some relief from the effects of climate change by selectively reducing the particulate pollution we produce. Recent research suggests that if we can clean up diesel engines and primitive cookstoves in India and China, for example, that could delay the effects of greenhouse-gas buildup even if pollution from coal-fired power plants persists. A study released last week concludes that if every country were to do what California has done in the last couple of decades to clean up diesel emissions, it would slow down global warming by 15 percent. Reducing similar pollution from sources such as ships and cookstoves—which weren’t included in the study—could help even more.
Economists have long used game theory to make sense of the world. Now engineers and computer scientists are using it to rethink their work.
You and an accomplice in a major heist have been nabbed by the cops and are being interrogated in separate rooms. If you both keep quiet about the crime, you’ll each get a year in prison on a lesser charge. If you both squeal, you’ll each get five years. But if just one of you squeals, that one will go free while the other gets 10 years. If you don’t know what your accomplice will do, what’s the rational decision?
A tale of Cold War jitters
On August 12, 1948, Senator Bourke Hickenlooper learned something that horrified him: the details of the American nuclear program were about to be spilled to a roomful of foreign scientists. He sped into action, requesting an emergency meeting with the secretary of defense. "Some of the most vital of our weapons secrets were about to be disclosed in full," he later recounted. He and the secretary moved quickly to stop the man they believed responsible.
Emissionless method could curb a major source of greenhouse gases
Conventional steelmaking may be the world’s leading industrial source of greenhouse gases. But a new process developed by MIT researchers could change all that—and produce stronger (and ultimately cheaper) steel.
New tech will lower the cost of carbon capture, but the sheer scale needed to reduce emissions prevent it from being a panacea.
I’ve recently reported on a handful of ways that researchers are trying to lower the cost of capturing carbon dioxide, with the view to storing it underground or using it for something useful (see “Cheaper Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide,” “Grasping for Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide on the Cheap,” and “Fuel Cells Could Offer Cheap Carbon Dioxide Storage”).
Eschewing grit and realism for creativity and simplicity, Minecraft has heralded a new era in which bedroom programmers can bypass publishers and still see their creations become global hits.
All video-game makers are minor gods. They are, after all, in the business of world creation. The game creator sets down the mountains and arranges the valleys in his or her world. The creator decides upon the sky’s hue, the water’s viscosity, the pitch of birdsong, and the force of gravity’s pull. The creator types “Let there be light” (or the C# equivalent) and there is light. The creator chooses how and when night falls and whether or not there will be a new dawn. The creator conjures how time works (linear, malleable, or something else entirely) and writes the strands of code that form the incumbent creatures’ DNA. Then, when everything is planned out, the creator clicks “RUN” to execute a Big Bang.
Research could make persistent computer-vision more feasible, and improve your smartphone’s battery life.
The digital cameras in smartphones, tablets, and devices like Google Glass are increasingly powerful and useful. But the more powerful they are, the more they drain battery life.
Techniques developed at MIT and Pacific Northwest National Lab could make it more affordable to burn fossil fuels without releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Capturing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and then storing it underground could make it possible to continue using fossil fuels without making such a large contribution to global warming. But the current method of capturing the carbon dioxide requires a lot of energy—it can lower the output of a power plant by a third and nearly double the cost of electricity.
A surge in oil and gas production from shale rock has transformed energy in the United States, helping reverse declines in oil production and prompting a massive shift from coal to natural gas electricity production that has led to a significant drop in carbon dioxide emissions (since burning coal releases more carbon dioxide than burning natural gas). A new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration lends support to the idea that a similar transformation could take place outside the United States.
