BY MONIQUE DUBOS

Solar power in Minnesota is inevitable. That was the message delivered by Fresh Energy executive director Michael Noble at the March 6 Frontiers in the Environment talk, "Unleashing Minnesota's Solar Power Potential." Fresh Energy is leading a campaign to bolster the state's clean energy future. 

BY MONIQUE DUBOS

What do prehistoric cave dwellers and today's humans have in common? The ongoing quest for fuel sources. Humans have always had an energy crisis, said Larry Wackett, IonE resident fellow and professor at the BioTechnology Institute, at the first Frontiers seminar of the spring semester: Is Frac(k) A Four-Letter Word?

BY BEN LAUER

One fact that should be widely known to residents of the Twin Cities Metro area is that their city is home to some of the most widely available alternative forms of transportation in the nation. Ingrid Schneider's recent Frontiers in the Environment presentation, "Toward Active Transport in Minnesota: Insight & Ideas From a Statewide Survey," provided plenty of important insight into the motivations behind active transport.

BY BEN LAUER

What if we were able to step outside of ourselves and observe the Earth from above the Troposphere over the past 1,000 years? What would we see?

That was the question posed by Lewis Gilbert, IonE's managing director, at last week's Frontiers in the Environment talk, "From Muscles to Molecules: A Revolution in the Earth System." The answer, Lewis suggested, reveals a startling process of human-controlled change. 

BY BEN LAUER

Last Wednesday's Frontiers in the Environment event series brought multitalented Arctic enthusiast Debbie Miller to speak about her time spent exploring the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Miller's broad range of experience as a writer, journalist, teacher and conservationist provided a large-scope view of the United States' largest tract of undeveloped public land. During the past three summers, Miller spent 68 days in the NPRA traveling over 600 miles of terrain either on foot or by canoe down the reserve's long, winding rivers. Her presentation explored the history, industry and especially the ecological importance of the 23-million-acre area, which has been described as "the wildest corner in America."

On Friday (29 June 2012), Science told the world how a collaboration of scientists created something uniquely un-abstract. A group of engineers at the University of Minnesota, along with other international scientists, used nanosheets at 90-degree angles in catalyzing oil; almost like curtains attached between bars of scaffolding. 

But what for? All the gas we use once needed a catalyst to be turned from oil into useable gasoline. During the traditional refining process, oil molecules clog their filters and it takes a significant amount of time for oil to reach the catalyst. However, this 90-degree design allows for speedy access to the catalyst. The economic impacts of this could trickle down as far a lowering the price of gasoline and other related products, such as plastics. Furthermore, the method can potentially be applied to other refining processes for biofuels and natural gas, to name a few.

While the project was made possible by a multiple funding sources, some of its funding came from IonE's Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment. Needless to say, efficiency is a surefire way of greening most processes and these scientists found efficiency for a basic chemical we rely on every day: oil.

See their abstract in Science or the press release.