Latest news with #environmentalengineering
CBC
6 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Eastern Ontario farmers relieved after water plant expansion put on hold
Farmers who were worried their land would be expropriated to expand the Casselman Water Treatment Plant are relieved now the project has been changed. The municipality of Casselman plans to extend the wastewater discharge period through its existing facilities over the next two decades. Yves Morrissette, general manager for the municipality, told Radio-Canada the plan is to obtain a continuous discharge of treated water year-round, which means Casselman would not need an additional lagoon cell. "This is a solution that the [municipality] fully supports," Morrissette said in French. Nicolas Bialik, one of the environmental engineers working on the project's design, said the solution involves maintaining the existing lagoon system, adding filtration facilities and other specialized treatment systems to meet Ontario government standards. Farmers who were worried about losing land to the planned expansion were thrilled. "This is great news for us farmers and residents," Casselman resident Guy Laflèche said in French. Once the project planning is completed, the Ontario Environment Ministry will have to give its approval for the next step. Water plant struggling to meet demand The land near the water treatment plant had belonged to The Nation, a rural municipality in eastern Ontario. Casselman, a village located about 50 kilometres from downtown Ottawa along Highway 417, is surrounded on all sides by The Nation. In September, Casselman submitted a request to The Nation to annex some land "to potentially allow for future expansion" of its lagoon system. The Nation accepted. The expansion would have included the creation of a 150-meter buffer zone around the lagoons to comply with provincial requirements. Casselman's water treatment plant is struggling to meet demand, according to a report released by the municipality in May of last year. For more than a decade, high levels of manganese have periodically turned the municipality's water brown. The report offered several possible solutions, including expansion of the water treatment plant. Future expansion still possible While farmers are happy the planned expansion has been put on hold, the municipality has not ruled out a possible expansion in the future. As a result, some farmers remain worried. "Having access to the land allows them to expropriate the owners more easily in order to eventually build lagoons," said Marc-Antoine Racine, whose family owns a farm in the area. Morrissette said the municipality is trying to avoid land expropriation as much as possible. "Although when we are faced with the facts, it will be a decision that the council will have to make," Morrissette said.
Fast Company
12-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
How Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill' threatens to make U.S. energy dirtier and more expensive
When it comes to energy policy, the ' One Big Beautiful Bill Act '—the official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025 —risks raising Americans' energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars, and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy. The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy. As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former. Renewable energy Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing more than 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power. However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries. It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act. Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal, and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits. In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions ' unworkable,' since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible. Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar, and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. That's why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a ' nightmare scenario ' for clean energy proponents. However, one person's nightmare may be another man's dream. 'We're constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,' said Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry. Efficiency and electric cars Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows, and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries. For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks, and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects. Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University. Nuclear power Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it. For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs. Biofuels While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting, and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use. Hydrogen The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called hydrogen hubs that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen. The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture. However it's made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the world's smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen. Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Gene-hacked microbe pulls rare earths and traps carbon 58x faster than nature
In the war for clean energy and climate survival, scientists have found an unlikely ally: a metal-eating microbe. Tiny but tenacious, Gluconobacter oxydans is being reprogrammed to replace heavy machinery and toxic chemicals in the extraction of rare earth elements. But this microbe isn't just pulling metals from stone. It's also accelerating the Earth's natural ability to trap carbon dioxide, offering a two-for-one deal in the fight against climate change. Armed with genetic tweaks that turbocharge its acid production and unlock hidden biochemical abilities, G. oxydans is proving to be more efficient than new research, scientists at Cornell University boosted its rare earth extraction power by up to 73 percent—without the environmental damage of traditional mining. The same microbe can also accelerate natural carbon capture by 58 times, transforming ordinary rocks into long-term CO₂ storage systems. 'More metals will have to be mined in this century than in all of human history, but traditional mining technologies are enormously environmentally damaging,' said Buz Barstow, associate professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, in a release.'Currently, the U.S. has to obtain almost all of these elements from foreign sources, including China, creating a risk of supply-chain disruption.' Metals like magnesium, iron, and calcium naturally react with carbon dioxide to form minerals that lock the gas away for good. Cornell's engineered microbes supercharge this process by breaking down rock faster, exposing more metal to CO₂, and turning the Earth itself into a carbon trap. 'What we're trying to do is take advantage of processes that already exist in nature but turbocharge their efficiency and improve sustainability,' said Esteban Gazel, the Charles N. Mellowes Professor in Cornell Engineering. To push the microbes' potential further, Cornell scientists dug into its genetic blueprint. In one study, they discovered that with just two genome edits, G. oxydans could become far more effective at dissolving rock—one tweak increased acid production, while the other removed internal limits, dramatic increasing rare earth recovery. But acid wasn't its only tool. A second study revealed that the microbe uses other, previously unknown pathways to extract metals. By knocking out genes one by one in a high-performing strain, researchers identified 89 genes tied to bioleaching—68 of which had never before been linked to the process. That breakthrough helped boost extraction efficiency by more than 100 percent. In parallel, a third paper showed that G. oxydans can speed up natural carbon capture without relying on high temperatures, pressure, or harsh chemicals. As it breaks down magnesium- and iron-rich rocks, those elements bind with carbon dioxide to form solid minerals like limestone, permanently locking the carbon away.'This process can occur in ambient conditions, at low temperature, and it doesn't involve the use of harsh chemicals,' said Joseph Lee, a Ph.D. student and lead author. 'It naturally draws down CO2 and stores it permanently as minerals. We're also recovering other energy-critical metals like nickel as byproducts. It's a two-fold solution.' With funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, Cornell Atkinson, and alumni donors, the work is now moving from the lab to the real world. The research, published in Communications Biology and Scientific Reports, was led by Alexa Schmitz, now CEO of REEgen, an Ithaca-based startup working to commercialize the technology.
