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Now Playing | An experimental short film from Iran.

Now Playing | An experimental short film from Iran.

Critics said the $800-million green hydrogen plan could end up making the climate crisis worse, not better.

Now Playing | The Fabricated Wild explores the intersections between the natural and artificial within the Florida wilderness using personal film-making technology. Images strictly of the natural landscape are sequenced to break from traditional cinematic viewing techniques. Images foreground the natural Florida landscape in the frame and communicate how cinema fabricates the expansive wilderness. The Fabricated Wild frames the complex interaction between a frustrated filmmaker and the collective unconsciousness of the natural environment, a theory outlined by Carl Jung, considering the implications and discoveries along the way. The film frames the experience of interacting with and revealing the forest’s collective unconsciousness that is frequently hidden in cinema to call for an experimental way to engage with the natural landscape. 16mm, Super 8.

Now Playing | The experimental short film ANSAGE ENDE is an artistic reflection on being engaged with the world. Combining fiction and documentary, music and text, this hybrid film calls for a collective and activist approach to the climate crisis. The visually stunning ANSAGE ENDE opens with an imaginative journey through an empty landscape where water meets land. Two characters walk through the mud, away from the viewer, into an open yet unknown future. They fantasize about what our rapidly developing world might bring and question their personal participation in this possible future. Slowly the film moves away from the imaginary into the real. Climate destruction becomes ghastly visible: huge machines in a brown coal mine eat up the soil, searching for energy and profit. Policemen and women enable sawers to cut down the neighboring forest for the expansion of the mine. Young activists occupy the trees, trying to stop the destruction of this primeval forest.

Now Playing | The Carbon Chronicles: Who owns the air? The Carbon Chronicles is an experimental animated visualisation of the build-up of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses has radically altered the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a collaboration between artists from the Manifest Data Lab and scientists from the British Antarctic Survey. The animation maps from the industrial revolution to the present day the regions contributing most to the climate crisis, which can be traced through the stalagmite growths representing CO2 emissions growing out from the different countries. Beginning with the UK in the 1750s, emissions from coal start enveloping the planet, other regions soon follow. By the late 1800s through to the current period, growing industrial and extraction activity in the Global North is responsible for 92% of CO2 with 8% coming from the Global South. The spread of CO2 described in the animation mirrors the wider historic processes of power distribution visited on poorer countries and shows that the atmosphere is as contested a space as the territories beneath it. The work describes a living breathing planet, under the pressure of human produced exhalations of CO2. It attributes responsibility in ways that can inform the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation and its impacts. The Carbon Chronicles informs the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation to ask: Who Owns the Air?

This ultrafast infrared spectroscopy method would fulfill many unmet needs in experimental molecular science, revealing various high-speed phenomena in detail. Infrared spectroscopy is a non-invasive...

Past Presentation | They want to build a road here! Music and images over a beautiful part of the world where the City People want to build a road, to expand the City into the Country.

Now Playing | A narrative video poem that frames the destruction of the Rio Grande Valley through the Mexican ghost story of La Llorona.

Now Playing | A personal dive into the world’s most impersonal substance: plastics. Amid the lockdown, a bereaved mother unfolds a surprising journey within and across oceans to understand the contemporary landscape of single-use synthetics. From the noble intentions behind its invention to scales of havoc it has wrought, this experimental documentary brings together art, history, science, and the everyday. Playfully crafted with hand-drawn illustrations and poetic interludes, this evocative “pause between deep time and no time” will change how you think about this ordinary “thing without thingness."

Past Presentation | Journey to the seemingly idyllic Hawaii, where communities are surrounded by experimental test sites for genetically engineered seed corn and pesticides sprayed upwind of homes, schools, hospitals, and shorelines. Discover what’s at stake for Hawaii from local activists, scientific experts, and healthcare professionals who explain the effects of environmental injustice. Join the international debate about pesticides and the movement to hold corporations and governments accountable for poisoning planet Earth. Jane Goodall: “I hope that this film is shown around the world, that it wins every prize out there, that it wakes people up and generates anger.”

Now Playing | We follow a day in the life of Yosarian Bisbee, aka Yo, as he gathers “junk” from the local dump and unwanted food from the grocery store, all in an effort to minimize waste.

Now Playing | This film was made as a tribute to the wonders of our earth and the importance of protecting them. Follow a young woman, armed with her banjo and her spirit, as she enters a portal from a post-apocalyptic world into a realm of rhinoceroses, gorillas and ancient trees to recover magical seeds and make the world wild again!

Now Playing | Water drops turning to the starry night. I found two words 'spontaneously' and 'simultaneously' alongside one another in a vocabulary notebook and thought it seemed to be wonderful that the meanings of the two words conjoined. I embody the idea by using a turntable with a running mirror under the photo panel, and it could imply how I and others relate across the media symbolically. Consequently water turns into the starry night, like howling dreams come true.

Now Playing | Join us on an quiet trip into the woods and see all the sites, big and small, that you may not have noticed before. There are critters, birds, deer, trees, and great bodies of water that will capture your eye for you to gaze upon. But be forewarned, some day these great sites may disappear in place for something more modern. So enjoy what time you have to gaze on such sites, it may be your last.

Now Playing | "Tellus" is a love letter for Mother Earth which celebrates our connection with her - from pure joy and love towards nature’s elements, to our collective fears and worries about the damage that humankind has done to our planet, to an inspiring call for action and a hope for a greener, more united future. "Tellus" is a sustainable, female-led community project that captures love, concern and hope for our planet from voices across the world.

Now Playing | "Alles hat Grenzen, NUR DER MONDFISCH NICHT" is an environmental film musical, in which nature acts and speaks in a diversity of voices. Surfacing evocatively from micro- and macrocosmic layers, she resonates with water as the source of life and resounds as exploited resource. She echoes from the trenches of an inverted world and speaks out as a human being. Reverberating through ecological-cultural depths, images, sounds and associations push to light, giving shape to a vision of humanity being in tune with nature.

Past Presentation | A story of Daniel Dembele’s journey growing the budding idea of solar panels into a viable company, and of the business’ impact on Daniel’s first customers in the tiny village of Banko. Taking controversial stances on climate change, poverty, and African self-sufficiency, the film explores what it means to grow up as a man, and what it takes to prosper as a nation. An Official Selection of IFP’s Documentary Rough Cut Lab and Independent Film Week/Spotlight on Docs, and supported by LEF Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, and Experimental Television Center.

Now Playing | Insects were here before humanity, but often we eliminate them as a nuisance. They are a fundamental element of this world. Without them, most of the plants would not be pollinated and birds would lose their food and become extinct. Despite their vital role, they are silently disappearing at a rapid rate.... without us noticing. ‘In Praise of Insects’ is a project to help us rethink the tiny subtle lives that are so entwined with our own. The common Bluebottle is one of the few butterflies that can be seen in central Tokyo. Even if you occasionally see the butterfly flying between buildings, you can see the miracle of life by closely observing its appearance and growth.

Past Presentation | After a sting operation in Bangkok for two trafficked orangutans leave those accountable with no consequence, Daniel Stiles, a detective in the illegal wildlife trade, thinks of new ways to combat illegal trafficking of great apes. For the last 8 years the focus of Sytsma’s work has been giving a platform to ordinary people who express a specific sociopolitical concern to strengthen community and inform us of actions and consequences at the ground level. Originally trained as an experimental storyteller and cinematographer at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts, his work has been shown on national media like PBS and at film festivals around the world.

Cinema Verde presents an interview with Nick Twardus, the director of "The Fabricated Wild" . "The Fabricated Wild" explores the intersections between the natural and artificial within the Florida wilderness using personal filmmaking technology. Images strictly of the natural landscape are sequenced to break from traditional cinematic viewing techniques. Images foreground the natural Florida landscape in the frame and communicate how cinema fabricates the expansive wilderness. The Fabricated Wild frames the complex interaction between a frustrated filmmaker and the collective unconsciousness of the natural environment, a theory outlined by Carl Jung, considering the implications and discoveries along the way. The film frames the experience of interacting with and revealing the forest’s collective unconsciousness that is frequently hidden in cinema to call for an experimental way to engage with the natural landscape. 16mm, Super 8. Our full catalog of video interviews and streaming films is available to members at cinemaverde.org.

The machine-learning algorithm identified a compound that kills Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacterium that lurks in many hospital settings.

Consuming lithium-contaminated tap water during pregnancy could be associated with an increased risk of newborn autism development, according to a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles.  By cross-checking lithium levels in Danish public waterworks with the country’s extensive civil data on pregnancy and psychiatric disorders, the researchers found that as lithium concentrations...

Past Presentation | What if the greatest chemical disaster of our time did not involve oil spills or nuclear meltdowns? Instead, imagine much lower levels of exposure, inflicted over several generations and affecting every person on the planet. The result: rising rates of everything from cancer to autism to infertility. This is the shocking reality explored in The Human Experiment. The film follows a band of unlikely activists who are fighting back. Ranging from Howard, a conservative businessman, to Jessica, a teenage radical, they are stalking their reputation, career and future in this battle to protect our health. And their opposition is Goliath, the powerful chemical industry is heavily invested in maintaining the status quo, pulling unseen strings to create an aura of skepticism and confusion.

With a grant from the Office of Naval Research, MIT researchers aim to design novel high-performance steels, with potential applications including printed aircraft components and ship hulls.

One company is trying to harness the energy in ocean waves to make desalination more efficient.

MIT researchers exhibit a new advancement in autonomous drone navigation, using brain-inspired liquid neural networks that excel in out-of-distribution scenarios.

Promoting small actions, such as reducing plastic use, can be a useful entry point for other actions around climate change. It’s an example of ‘positive spillover behaviour’.

It’s not at every university that laser pulses powerful enough to burn paper and skin are sent blazing down a hallway. But that’s what happened...

A new study links very dry and very humid indoor environments with worse Covid-19 outcomes.

Physical-collapse theories have long offered a natural solution to the central mystery of the quantum world. But a series of increasingly precise experiments are making them untenable. The post Experiments Spell Doom for Decades-Old Explanation of Quantum Weirdness first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The state plans to take a hands-off approach to wolf reintroduction — and critics fear the worst.

In mid-July in Phoenix, a man demonstrated to a local news station how to cook steak on the dashboard of his car. The city sweltered through a nearly monthlong streak of 110-degree temperatures this summer, while heat records are tumbling across the Southwest. But despite the signs that this is the new normal, farmers in the region are planting the same thirsty crops on the same parched land in the desert, and watching them wither year after year. And why not? The American taxpayer is covering their losses.Research released in June by the Environmental Working Group shows that since 2001, heat linked to climate change has driven $1.33 billion in insurance payouts to farmers across the Southwest for crops that failed amid high temperatures. As the planet warms through the century, payments resulting from the impacts of climate change across the nation are likely to increase by as much as $3.7 billion.Studies have repeatedly shown that federally subsidized crop insurance discourages farmers from updating their practices, tools, or strategies in ways that would help them adapt to climate change—but the federal government still subsidizes a whopping 62 percent of farmers’ insurance premiums. Until someone in Washington figures out a better way to spend our money, farmers in the Southwest are going to keep planting thirsty crops in the desert. They have little incentive not to.The Federal Crop Insurance Program, the world’s largest crop insurance system, was established in the wake of the Dust Bowl to protect farmers from debilitating acts of God—decades before a growing body of scientific work firmly established the link between our fossil fuel use and rising temperatures. Although the government’s safety net for farmers includes an array of tools, this single program’s annual $10 billion price tag, which covers everything from drought in Arizona to flooding in Mississippi, accounts for a third of all public money spent on agriculture. Four-fifths of that is used to subsidize farmers’ costs.Buoyed by ardent lobbying from large agricultural interests, the FCIP guarantees near-normal revenues in the face of losses that would cripple other businesses. It props up poorly managed operations while enabling risky decisions like growing thirsty crops in a desert where millions of people vie for dwindling supplies of water.In states like Arizona that depend on the stressed Colorado River, how and what farmers choose to grow has taken on new importance. Agriculture uses three-quarters of the region’s water to raise crops such as cotton, which sucks up an average of 30 inches of irrigation annually compared to wheat, which needs just 21 inches. Despite the arid conditions, there are plenty of reasons why farmers in the Southwest grow cotton, including the market, availability of financing, past experience, and tools at hand. Subsidized insurance is a big one.Although the program covers more than 100 different crops across the United States, the vast majority of payouts go to corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton, which are planted nationally on the most acres. Cotton is unique in the FCIP program in that it accounts for only 5 percent of the total acres enrolled in FCIP policies but has received a full 10 percent of claim payments over the past three decades—thanks in part to its intense water needs and the droughts that have roiled portions of the country in recent years. In central Arizona, where farmers experience the most acute impacts of Colorado River water shortages, a bale of cotton that sells for 65 cents actually costs 83 cents to raise. Still, cotton growers in Pinal County, south of Phoenix, continue planting with help from around $10 million in annual crop insurance payments—more than in any other county in the state.Agricultural production is worth protecting; food and fiber are too important to be subject to the increasingly cruel vagaries of the weather and global trade. But as it stands, the FCIP is maladapted to the challenges of our modern world, where places like Arizona are routinely smashing through high heat records and water in the West is becoming increasingly scarce. While home insurers like State Farm are pulling out of California and Florida due to the mounting costs of climate disasters, the FCIP is doing the opposite: insulating farmers from the true cost of doing business.The average return for home and auto policies is about 60 cents per dollar spent on premiums. Farmers receive an average of $2.22 for every dollar they put into crop insurance. As a result, between 2000 and 2016, farming businesses—mostly large ones—collectively pocketed $65 million more in claim payments than they paid in premiums. They were paid to plant crops that never came to market. Despite these failures, some of Washington’s most influential players say the FCIP is working just fine. Collin Peterson, a 15-term Democratic congressman from Minnesota who is now a lobbyist for the agriculture industry, said last year that the program is “the most successful thing we’ve done in agriculture.” Without federally subsidized crop insurance, he argues, farmers would be unable to compete with global markets or Mother Nature. But farmers saw prices and incomes strengthen during the years leading to 1980 before Congress expanded the program to subsidize premiums. Other supporters contend that consumers would suffer from skyrocketing prices. Yet economists have found no meaningful link between food and fiber prices and crop insurance. What is clear is that farmers’ participation in subsidized crop insurance programs is primarily driven by its availability. When faced with paying the full cost of premiums themselves, farmers find other, cheaper means of managing risk, like conservation practices that save money in the long run, according to a recent analysis by the American Enterprise Institute.The age of climate change demands better ways of managing risk. We need agriculture—even in Arizona. There’s good sun in the desert, and it makes sense to take advantage of that asset by planting well-suited crops. Some farmers are trying overlooked native food crops, including beans or experimental rubber plants, but these so far lack the market opportunity the FCIP helps to maintain for cotton.I’ve met farmers in Arizona who would gladly accept an alternative to cotton if it were economically viable. But there are other factors in play. Although the FCIP is government-funded, its policies are sold and serviced by 14 private insurance companies that have gotten rich by keeping things exactly as they are.Most of the program’s money not spent subsidizing premiums is used to reimburse these companies’ administrative costs. Ten of these are large, publicly traded corporations whose CEOs collectively take home almost $112 million a year, according to the EWG. And they all earn a 14.5 percent rate of return on their investments, compared to the 10 percent common to other insurance industries. This is thanks to the lobbying efforts of groups like the nonprofit American Farm Bureau Federation, which owns American Farm Bureau Insurance Services—one of those 10 providers. Lawmakers are currently negotiating a new farm bill—a once-every-five-years opportunity to set FCIP policy. Subsidies still make sense for many farmers, especially small ones, but a few updates to the program would go a long way. First, funds should be reserved for the growers in most need, not millionaire operations. Next, to adapt to climate change, forecasts for determining premiums should be based on the latest climate models rather than historic trends. Painting a more accurate picture of the risk would inform more sustainable cropping decisions.Most importantly, FCIP funds should be used to pay farmers to permanently retire acres that consistently fail to produce. This would allow farmers to focus their efforts and resources where they do the most good. The program should also limit its coverage of crops ill suited to their regions and instead invest in existing conservation programs and research into markets for desert-adapted products. A sober fix would be to reapportion some FCIP funds to existing programs that help farmers upgrade their irrigation systems or that provide conservation and agricultural assistance—including those that help reduce on-farm greenhouse gas emissions.This is all politically difficult, but it’s not impossible, and the advancing water crisis in the West means time is of the essence. In May, legislators celebrated the latest inadequate agreement for sharing what’s left of the Colorado River. Like the winter’s generous snowpack and spring’s encouraging rains, the deal will buy a little more time to find a sustainable solution to the region’s chronic water shortage. Meanwhile, technocrats float implausible fixes, like piping in water from the Mississippi River basin or desalting the Sea of Cortez. Congress has an opportunity to end some of this absurdity—to change the incentives to reflect the reality of a changing climate and allow desert farmers to continue providing food and fiber while doing their share to help avoid a calamitous future.This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, an independent, nonprofit news organization.

With the support of each other and MIT faculty, students in the MCSC’s Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program are making their impact on real-world climate challenges.

Geoengineering our atmosphere to cool the planet has long been a taboo subject. But as the earth keeps heating up, that may now be changing.

“We are mindful that we’re going to have to be more proactive as a state in terms of our efforts in Washington, D.C.” That was Gov. Gavin Newsom’s delicately worded assessment of how California might fare differently under Kevin McCarthy — the Bakersfield Republican positioned to take over as speaker of the U.S. House of […]

This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Animal testing has long been necessary for a drug to gain approval by the US Food and Drug Administration—but it may be on its way out. A new law seeks to replace some lab animal use with […]

On a chilly, overcast morning in early March, as Smith’s farm assistant, Leeza Regensburger, wrestles with an antiquated weed whacker, the most elaborate technology visible on his half-acre field is a sheet of black plastic weed barrier. Yet there’s something conceptually similar between superconducting quadrupole electromagnets and the work going on here. Just as the […] The post A Radical Seed-Breeding Project Could Help Southern Farmers Adapt to Climate Change appeared first on Civil Eats.

A study is under way in the water-scarce region to see if commodity farmers can use the regenerative technique of cover cropping as a way to adapt to rapidly changing weather conditionsIn one of the toughest growing regions in the US, commercial farmers like Frank Machac are experimenting with a style of ancient agriculture more known for soil health than profit.They are perhaps unlikely budding agroecologists. “My number one concern is yield, I’m not worrying about climate change,” said Machac, 60, a ruddy-faced straight talker with 30 years’ farming experience in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Continue reading...

Two 600-gallon fuel tanks, awash in groovy retro-modern swirls of purple, pink, and orange breach a sea of gray machinery. Nearby, a powertrain testbed spreads across a workstation in a tangle of wires entwining a blue metal frame. At a glance, the industrial gallery gracing this small Los Angeles area airport hangar doesn’t register as visionary. But if Paul Eremenko has his way, this unassuming engineering test kitchen will serve up a revolution in aviation and a strike against global warming. While it involves hydrogen-powered flight, that’s not the novelty here. The first experimental hydrogen-powered aircraft flew in 1988, with startups to multinationals now addressing the challenge for commercial fleets. What is novel is rethinking hydrogen delivery for aviation. Eremenko and Universal Hydrogen (UH)—the three-year-old startup that the clean aviation pioneer and CEO cofounded with general counsel Jon Gordon—are tackling the missing logistics to make carbon-free flight economically viable. The real hurdle will be convincing the industry to get on board: getting the system FAA-certified for commercial service by 2025; then converting enough smaller fleets in time to prove this approach to Boeing and Airbus before they lock down designs for their next-generation jetliners. “Everything we do is with that goal in mind,” he says. There’s just one catch: UH has to do this in five years. [Photo: courtesy of Universal Hydrogen] But first comes the maiden test flight on March 2, when a retrofitted Dash-8 airplane draped in the same vibrant colors plus the company’s polar bear mascot takes a 20-minute spin from Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Washington. Dash 8 and ATR-72 models, 40-60-seaters that fly routes up to 600 miles, comprise the lion’s share of the regional turboprop market with just over 2,400 combined planes. UH has airline orders to retrofit around 10% of that market and expects to tackle half of it. Decarbonizing most regional air travel, which accounts for seven percent of aviation emissions, could influence narrow-body aircraft—the single-aisle carriers that typically seat 150-200 passengers and fly transcontinental and occasionally transatlantic routes. Boeing and Airbus are rethinking these models for better efficiency, improved passenger experience, and cleaner emissions for a mid-2030s rollout. Eremenko (himself a former Airbus CTO) expects them to finalize those designs around 2028 and wants UH to be ready when they do. The sheer number of narrow-bodies and their flights produce 51% of all aviation emissions. “If we do the single-aisles in the 2030s and the big wide-bodies in the 2040s, by 2050, this industry could get to zero emissions,” he says. Aviation is one of the hardest industries to decarbonize, because of weight, regulatory, and safety hurdles. But it’s not trying hard enough, Eremenko insists. Airlines are slowly adopting sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), pricier bio and synthetic fuels with lower carbon footprints than conventional propellants. But that falls far short of hydrogen engines, which take 3.5 times less energy to produce and emit only water as “exhaust.” “The default reaction in the aviation sector is, `’It’s too hard to change the airplane engine. So we’re stuck with kerosene, but let’s try to make it slightly cleaner kerosene,'” he says. “Hydrogen is always the best fuel, but there’s no hydrogen logistics network to get it to the airport and into the airplane, and nobody’s job to build one. So, we made it ours.” Eremenko likens the UH solution to a Nespresso coffee maker and pods. “They buy coffee and ship it to their customers in pods designed to fit their coffee maker. We buy hydrogen and put it in this convenient capsule that can be transported to the customer by truck and slotted into their retrofitted engines,” he says. Eventually UH plans to outsource its engine manufacturing and focus solely on delivering hydrogen for aviation and, other mobility industries. “We don’t want to be in the coffee machine business. We want to be in the capsule as a service business. But we have to build the first coffee maker; that’s our conversion kit for regional airplanes, and what’s going to fly [March 2].” Universal Hydrogen co-founder and CEO Paul Eremenko with his dog and Chief Canine Officer, Li [Photo: Universal Hydrogen] It’s a bold vision for the 100-person company, albeit one backed with nearly $100 million from such powerhouses as Airbus, General Electric, American Airlines, JetBlue, and Toyota. (UH needs another $200 million or so to get hydrogen regional airplanes into commercial passenger service.) But Eremenko brings a formidable background: The Ukrainian-born 43-year-old boasts degrees from MIT, CalTech, and Georgetown University Law School, executive positions at DARPA, Google, Airbus, and United Technologies, and a pilot’s license before he could drive. Not to mention, there is a sense of urgency with worsening climate change. Eremenko has grown increasingly frustrated with aviation’s lax response to Paris Agreement goals. They involve reducing carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero by 2050 in an effort to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 °C (2.7 °F)—a target some scientists already doubt is possible. Aviation contributes roughly 2.5% of total global emissions, exceeding the output of some countries, and only threatens to grow. Air transport is expected to increase by an average of 4.3% per year over the next 20 years, with 10,000 more commercial airliners by 2032 and 200,000 daily flights by the mid-2030s, to triple industry emissions by 2050. “[Aviation] companies make incremental improvements just enough to stay apace with the competition. Nobody wants to stick their neck out and be like, `‘I’m gonna do something fundamentally different,’” because it demands too much money, risk, and rejiggering factories, design tools, and workflow, says Eremenko. “When I was at Airbus, one of my big frustrations was that we as an industry would set fake targets. `We can’t meet Paris Agreement goals, so we’ll set new goals that are less stringent that we can actually meet.’ And I was like, “‘Eh, this doesn’t really work for me.’” Net-zero vs true zero The problem is that current carbon reduction and offsetting methods—like using SAFs or funding tree planting—won’t counter aviation’s anticipated growth, a view Eremenko laid out in an opinion piece in Fast Company last year. SAFs capture some CO2 in production, which offset some of the environmental impacts of burning a hydrocarbon (kerosene) at 35,000 feet. However, their capture processes are inefficient, more expensive, and don’t always remove the amount they put in. The algae used for many jet biofuels offsets a small portion of CO2 but consumes huge areas of biomass, creating another negative environmental impact. Synthetic fuels attach carbon atoms from CO2 sucked from the air to hydrogen to fabricate hydrocarbon molecules (synthetic kerosene), only to reintroduce that carbon into the atmosphere when they’re burned. “If the amount of carbon in the air is producing these climate change effects already, we need to remove it,” says Eremenko. “If you want to truly decarbonize the sector and do `true zero’ instead of `net zero,’ you have to use green hydrogen.” Hydrogen vendors make green hydrogen by running electricity generated by wind, solar, or hydropower through water to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. (Compared to extracting it from carbon-containing molecules, like methane.) On regional plane engines, hydrogen feeds through a fuel cell where it reacts with oxygen from outside air to produce electricity, propelling the aircraft and releasing water. On narrow-bodies and larger aircraft, hydrogen burns in the jet engine with the same efficiency as a conventional one, while still emitting only water. But hydrogen presents unique logistical hurdles. While it packs significantly more energy per unit of weight than kerosene, hydrogen requires four times more volume for the same energy content. That means fueling takes four times longer, which would greatly lengthen the typical 30-minute turnaround time between commercial flights. There’s also a high leakage rate. A combination of hydrogen’s tiny size and cooling requirements results in losses that can range from five to fifteen percent with each transfer from one vessel to another. The UH modular approach addresses these challenges. The fuel capsule swap can occur in a few minutes and keep losses down by eliminating the numerous transfer operations. Harnessing public opinion For a company under such severe deadlines with its first test flight looming, the atmosphere at its headquarters is focused but remarkably chill. Wild doves flit around the rafters of its airy converted hangar at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport, down the runway from SpaceX. Dogs are so encouraged at work that they even merit a profile section on the UH website. The prototyping shops occupy another two hangars here and one at the Toulouse–Blagnac Airport in France, with a manufacturing center earmarked for Albuquerque International Sunport in 2025. The colorful graphics on the UH capsules and test planes are a reflection of this vibe, a hip eco-friendly image that UH wants to present directly to consumers, despite being a B-to-B company. The idea is to build brand loyalty and environmental cred with travelers through social media and possibly a UH hydrogen frequent flyer program to help pressure the airlines. “The kids on TikTok today are going to be the teenagers in 2028 telling mom and dad they won’t go with them on vacation if it’s not a hydrogen airplane because we’re destroying the world. And the world is literally on fire,” he says. But can such a grassroots campaign sway consumer behavior enough to counter the Big Oil lobbies for synthetic kerosene? Eremenko sighs. “We’re getting a run for our money.” Lessons from DARPA Climate change warrior wasn’t initially on Eremenko’s career radar. When he moved to the U.S. at 11, he was more into space and briefly considered following in the footsteps of his father, a mathematician at Purdue University. That shifted when he sought flying lessons to escape the boredom of his Indiana suburb, earning his pilot’s license at 17. That experience prompted him to study aeronautics at MIT and CalTech, where he earned a master’s in 2002. After a circuitous route from an unmanned aircraft startup to management consultancy to law school, he found his calling overseeing innovation initiatives at the DARPA, Google, Airbus, and United Technologies. Eremenko met Jon Gordon at Airbus and they continued working together at United Technologies, where Gordon was deputy general counsel. By 2019, climate change had taken center stage in transportation, and Eremenko’s career journey had given him the skills and knowledge to piece together the roadmap to more sustainable aviation. [Photo: courtesy of Universal Hydrogen] “I wasn’t born dreaming of hydrogen,” he says with a laugh. “It was a means to an end.” He and Gordon left United Technologies that year to chart a course for UH, which they founded in March 2020—just days before the pandemic shut down in New York, where they’d been living at the time—and publicly announced the company the following September. Of all Eremenko’s positions, helming the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA, where his work included modular satellites (groups of satellites that work together), would have the most profound impact on his current leadership style and technical strategy. “DARPA was a truly magical place and the watershed career event for me,” he says. “It was my first real deep dive into modular architectures and showed the value of time constraints as a way to catalyze innovation.” Modularity enables engineers to build complex systems through isolated parts, so one change doesn’t create a cascade of them throughout the system. He would carry that thinking with him to Google, where he worked on a modular smartphone, and Airbus, where he developed concept airplane cabins that could be reconfigured per flight needs and length—like a gambling module for Las Vegas hauls. Modular design informed UH’s hydrogen delivery system, while the short window to prove the technology before Airbus and Boeing launch their next new airliner program has imposed the constraints leading to its innovative solution. “Time pressure typically focuses engineers, so you get the best out of them,” he adds. “This idea of setting a big ambitious goal but then having a very pragmatic sequence of near-term milestones that contribute to that goal is a very DARPA way of thinking.” If Eremenko is successful and UH facilitates a greater adoption of hydrogen-fueled planes, it will be a significant step for aviation, but not solely keep temperatures from rising. That still demands a concerted global effort to mitigate greenhouse gases across manufacturing and countries. But one step at a time. Eremenko is heartened by small recent attitudinal shifts in his industry. “People are saying, `Yeah, we will commit to net zero in 2050.’ I’d like to think that we are part of driving that change.”

Health concerns keep shrinking the roster of approved artificial dyes. But Americans still can’t seem to go cold turkey on ultra-colorful foods.

The project’s environmental credentials rely on highly speculative technologies, making Middle Arm a grand experiment with our climate.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allocated more than $3 billion to help farmers transition to practices that sequester carbon and reduce emissions. But some researchers claim the program can’t measure emissions accurately and is unlikely to achieve its climate goals.

At the border between land and sea, an extraordinary set of experiments is helping us prepare for an uncertain future

Some wavelengths of light in a range called far-UVC kill microbes in experiments and appear to be harmless to people

The story of America’s “lost crops” shows the reign of corn was not inevitable.

Stitching videos from dozens of cameras together provides unique 3D view of macroscopic experiments with microscopic detail. When a couple of plucky graduate students took...

According to a recent study, a diet high in salt can contribute to stress. In experiments with mice, researchers discovered that a high-salt diet led...

An experiment has reinforced the connection between contaminants. Eight years ago, the data was robust but only suggestive, and the evidence was strong but circumstantial....

By Julia-Simone Rutgers The Clean Environment Commission has a few questions about Sio Silica’s proposal to mine millions of tonnes of sand from a source of drinking water for thousands of Manitobans. Now it's up to the province to push for answers

After waking to the sound of explosions on February 24, 2022, the morning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Anastasiya Volkova knew that she and her family had to leave Kyiv. They were visiting the city from their home, an ecovillage, in the Ukrainian countryside two hours south of the capital, far from where the sound […]

Humans regularly give our pets and livestock shots. Now scientists are turning to immunization as a last resort for endangered species.

These tunable proteins could be used to create new materials with specific mechanical properties, like toughness or flexibility.

Dead birds and bats could help scientists make green energy safer.

This story was originally published by Hakai Magazine and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Clear blue sky above a forested island surrounded by glittering sea. Wild. Uninhabited. Protected. It appears as if we’re approaching paradise. We cut the boat’s engine and nose into a rocky beach. Crowned with Douglas fir, Garry oak, and […]

MISTI programming shows students their air travel carbon footprint is higher than most of them had thought.

The MIT Office of Sustainability gathers students, staff, faculty, and researchers for annual Sustainability Connect.