[audio http://cpa.ds.npr.org/pre/audio/2014/03/BUOYWINDENERGY-FINAL.mp3] Our department’s chair and my adviser, Harvey Seim, talks to NPR’s Jared Brumbaugh about our research into the offshore wind energy potential in North Carolina. In the next few days, we will be able to launch two buoys that have been down for repairs for almost a year or so. Harvey describes some of … Continue reading
When you were little, did you ever do that thing where you cut a worm in half because someone told you two new worms would grow from the parts? I did that thing. And it was the first of many somewhat morbid scientific disappointments in my childhood. It’s half true – the head half might … Continue reading
Wave energy may be very important to the renewable energy industry as more traditional green energy sources meet more and more opposition in the political and economic arena. In this post, I’ll show you how ocean waves work, and some of the ways people have been attempting to harness wave energy for use by humans … Continue reading
[Full Disclosure: I wrote this article for the express purpose of sharing this gifset: Cosmos with Carl Sagan] It is unsurprising that the recent creation/evolution debate stirred up some voracious animosities both in real life, and in comments on our very own blog. Discussions about the nature of science are rarely brought to center stage … Continue reading
This article is in follow-up to Serena’s earlier post about NOAA’s emerging guidelines in marine mammal acoustic protection. As Serena noted, marine mammals, including cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), are constantly communicating underwater using sound waves. Humans have also begun to use sound waves underwater to make processes of mapping the ocean floor easier and … Continue reading
Everyone’s familiar with the ‘shading effect’ that occurs on solar energy schemes. If a tree or high rise building casts a shadow on your photovoltaic cell’s glass face, that means your system isn’t generating as much energy as it could, because it’s not catching as much sunlight as it could. But did you know that … Continue reading
Though America has numerous conventional inland wind farms, there are currently zero operational offshore farms. There are several proposed projects: the Cape Wind proposal off the coast of Massachusetts, as well as other schemes in the northeast and in the Gulf of Mexico. However, the timeline from proposal to a site becoming operational can be … Continue reading
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