With research specialties at the intersections of energy, climate and environmental politics, UC Santa Barbara professor Leah Stokes has no shortage of timely topics to talk about, and get others to think of. There’s climate change, water policy, renewable energy, voting behavior. And that’s just her research, published in top journals and distilled into her 2020 book, “Short Circuiting Policy” (Oxford University Press).

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have awarded $326 million to three Colorado State University research projects that aim to improve U.S. oil and gas operations and reduce methane emissions nationwide.

The EPA’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program is providing the funding to the CSU Energy Institute and faculty working across multiple departments in the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, with the goal of helping oil and gas operators improve operational efficiency and manage emissions. The efforts will also support activity to build an inventory of methane emissions, improve air quality and offer workforce development.

In Journal of Laser Applications, researchers present paper-based temperature and humidity sensors that are accurate, reliable, and eco-friendly. The team created the sensors by printing silver lines on commercially available paper through dry additive nanomanufacturing. As the paper absorbs water vapor, its capacitance change is measured to reflect the relative humidity of the environment, and as the temperature increases, the metallic conductor experiences an increase in resistivity. They successfully detected changes in relative humidity levels from 20% to 90% and temperature variations from 25 C to 50 C.

Plastic waste remains an unsolved and a fast-growing environmental challenge, calling for breakthroughs in recycling technologies. Now, researchers from Korea have discovered that adding water to ruthenium-based catalysts can dramatically enhance the catalytic conversion of polyolefins—the major contributor of plastic waste—into valuable fuels. Their analyses highlight the economic and environmental viability of this novel approach, which could help us deal with plastic pollution, while fostering a circular economy.