An increase in population and need to protect the planet has created many initiatives and research goals in developing alternatives methods of fueling. Federal and state policies have provided a push for industries to find ways to of reducing their impact on the environment while maintaining competitiveness. In the sector of alternative fuels, large policies such as the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) in the United States are making goals to reduce vehicular fuel from coal and oil, and focus on alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Along with the RFS and other federal policies, states are introducing independent initiatives to promote the use of alternative fuels.
Research has shown that other crops besides corn can feasibly be used to produce ethanol for fuel use. One of the major crops of interest currently is switchgrass (Panicum Virgatum L.) because of its ability to grow under a variety of weather conditions and soil types. Switchgrass does not require as much maintenance as corn and is a perennial grass that can have high yielding fields for up to 9 years.
This report focuses on the impacts from using switchgrass-derived ethanol to meet the state of Arizona’s policy to have government fleet vehicles operating on alternative fuels. The study uses a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to evaluate 22 million gallons of ethanol produced in Arizona and stored at fueling stations for use. Impacts in land use, global warming, and water quality are evaluated using software tools and databases in Ecoinvent and Simapro.
The results of the study indicate that the cultivation and harvest phase of the process will contribute the most to negative environmental impacts. According to the study, application of heavy nutrient fertilizer and the machinery needed for the additional agriculture have the potential to contribute over 36 million moles of hydrogen and 89 million CTU eq. to the air, soil, and water.
This project includes a marketing plan for a local small business, Island Mochi. It examines the business and best practices in the industry to inform the marketing plan. The purpose of the marketing plan is to grow Island Mochi's sales by using digital marketing and public relations strategies. The components of the marketing plan include an executive summary, environmental analysis, SWOT analysis, customer personas, PR and marketing objectives, strategies and tactics, and an outline of the implementation and evaluation procedures.
Ambient air temperatures are expected to increase in the US desert southwest by 1-5 °C mid-century which will strain the electric power grid through increased loads, reduced power capacities, efficiencies, and material lifespans. To better understand and quantify this risk, a power infrastructure failure model is created to estimate changes in outage rates of components for increases in air temperatures in Arizona. Components analyzed include generation, transmission lines, and substations, because their outages can lead to cascading failures and interruptions of other critical infrastructure systems such as water, transportation, and information/communication technology. Preliminary results indicate that components could require maintenance or replacement up to 3 times more often due to mechanical failures, outages could occur up to 30 times more often due to overcurrent tripping, and the probability of cascading failures could increase 30 times as well for a 1 °C increase in ambient air temperature. Preventative measures can include infrastructure upgrades to more thermal resistant parts, installation of cooling systems, smart grid power flow controls, and expanding programs for demand side management and customer energy efficiency.
Social media today is a major source of not only communication, but also news and entertainment. This year, people everywhere have had to embrace virtual environments as their main sources of communication. For students, especially, the move to virtual schoolwork in 2020 has increased the amount of time spent on technology. This observational study examined, through an anonymous online survey, how college students spend their time on social media and how it affects their mental health. The 25-question survey was open to current ASU students as of 2021, and 2020 ASU graduates. Respondents’ results concluded that while students actively use social media for communication and entertainment, it can present a burden on their mental health and their productivity.
Recent developments in computational software and public accessibility of gridded climatological data have enabled researchers to study Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects more systematically and at a higher spatial resolution. Previous studies have analyzed UHI and identified significant contributors at the regional level for cities, within the topology of urban canyons, and for different construction materials.
In UHIs, air is heated by the convective energy transfer from land surface materials and anthropogenic activities. Convection is dependent upon the temperature of the surface, temperature of the air, wind speed, and relative humidity. At the same time, air temperature is also influenced by greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. Climatologists project a 1-5°C increase in near-surface air temperature over the next several decades, and 1-4°C specifically for Los Angeles and Maricopa during summertime due to GHG effects. With higher ambient air temperatures, we seek to understand how convection will change in cities and to what ends.
In this paper we develop a spatially explicit methodology for quantifying UHI by estimating the daily convection thermal energy transfer from land to air using publicly-available gridded climatological data, and we estimate how much additional energy will be retained due to lack of convective cooling in scenarios of higher ambient air temperature.