Transportation Research Posters

13C Metabolic Flux Analysis and Kinetic Modeling of Clostridium Thermocellum for Cellobiose Conversion to Biofuels

Charles J. Foster, Shyam Srinivasan, Satyakam Dash, Sarat Gopalakrishnan, Travis Korosh, Tyler Jacobson, Daniel G. Olson, Daniel Amador-Noguez, Costas D. Maranas

Clostridium thermocellum is a potential candidate for consolidated bioprocessing due to its ability to consume and ferment cellulose to ethanol. However, ethanol titers currently obtained in wild-type and engineered strains are below industrial requirements for economic viability.

Additionality & Carbon Neutrality: Insufficient for Real Climate Impact

Ben McCall

Many institutions want to eliminate their contribution to climate change, but not all are critically evaluating the actual climate impact of their actions. Well intentioned organizations risk falling into a trap of thinking they are making a difference by purchasing financial instruments, such as carbon credits, with unclear climate impacts.

Changing Behaviors to Reduce U.S. Emissions: Seven Pathways to Achieve Climate Impact

Katherine Heller, Antonius Gagern, Michael Berger, Kevin Green, John Thomas

Human behavior is at the core of many of the world's greatest environmental threats and climate change is no exception. Project Drawdown’s seminal list of 80 global climate solutions contains 30 in which individual and household behavior changes play a significant role. The United States is one of the highest-emitting countries of greenhouse gases and studies show that individual behavior contributes significantly to these emissions.

Climate Action Accelerator for Campuses: "Drawdown Campus"

John Moorhead, Chris Jones, Antoinette Vermilye, John Vermilye

Schools are pillars of communities. They provide children with inspiration, knowledge and tools to take into the world. Due to concerns about the climate crisis, biodiversity and plastic pollution facing our planet, students across the world are mobilizing and striking in protest of the lack of action, to raise awareness and to demand change to protect our futures.

Climate Change Across the Curriculum: Teaching 'Drawdown' Solutions in Higher-Education

David Proffitt, Ariane Mohr-Felsen

Climate change affects every aspect of our world, from human health and the ecosystems we live in to the ways we support ourselves both materially and emotionally. But the siloed world of higher education can make it difficult to present cross-cutting solutions to climate change in the classroom.

Climate Change Prevention, Mitigation, and Adaptation in Kenya

Gracie Pekarcik

Climate change is a phenomenon that has major implications across our entire plant. Within just the continent of Africa, The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “presented strong evidence that surface temperatures across Africa have increased by 0.5-2°C over the past 100 years, and from 1950 onward climate change has changed the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events” (Kenya NCCAP 2018-2022, 2018).

Developing Wind Energy Curriculum for First Year Engineering Seminars

Dharma Santos-Santiago

In the midst of a climate crisis, it is imperative that Penn State as an institution educates students to be aware and critical of the context and impact of their professional work. This means rooting the College of Engineering curriculum in sustainability and ethics. To accomplish this, we have developed wind energy curriculum for Penn State’s First Year Engineering Seminars (FYS).

Drawdown Learn Conference: Empowering Schools & Communities to Address Climate Change

Laura Weiland

The Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL) opened in 2009 with the construction of our EcoMachine, a natural wastewater reclamation facility designed in partnership with acclaimed biologist, John Todd. As the world’s first LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge certified project, the center receives thousands of visitors and many school groups each year. In 2018 we worked with Project Drawdown to produce the first Drawdown Learn Conference.

Enabling Emissions Reductions through High-Efficiency Gas Turbine Research at Penn State

Jacqueline O'Connor, Stephen Lynch, Reid Berdanier, Robert Kunz, Karen Thole

Gas turbine engines play a key role in power generation and aircraft transportation across the globe. As a result, emission reduction targets proposed through Project Drawdown include gas turbines as a necessary constituent.

Energy Impacts of Improved Signal Transmission Systems Used in Autonomy

Stephen Spoonamore, Fred Buzzell

All devices signal fidelity, range and power consumption are linked to the quality of the transmitting and receiving antenna hardware. With advent of 5G, CubeSat constellations and increasingly autonomous machines, the architecture and impact on electrical grid/power choices are growing increasingly complex. Autonomous Cargo Ships, Logging Equipment, Farm Tractors, Trucks, Planes and Cars are now in use.

Engineering Ethics for First Year Seminar Courses

Corrin Collins

Engineers develop advanced technology that benefits society. Engineers’ ethics focus on human well-being, health, and safety that are essential to provide an improved quality life for individuals, society, and our planet. Climate change is a societal issue that encompasses these three ethical focuses. Therefore, climate change topics should be included in the engineering students’ curriculum.

Feasibility Analysis of Electric Vehicles in Pennsylvania

Corey Scamman

There are 12 million cars in Pennsylvania and 99% of those are conventional vehicles which emit greenhouse gases. Collectively, these cars emit an estimated annual 55 million metric tons of CO # and other harmful gases. The wide scale electrification of passenger vehicles in our society is a promising solution to reduce these emissions. This study presents a state level feasibility assessment framework that can be applied to all states and a case study focusing on Pennsylvania.

Feasibility Assessment of Electric Bicycles in Centre Region, Pennsylvania

Emmeline Evans

In the search for lower-emissions alternatives to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric bicycles, or e-bikes, have emerged as a popular option due to their ease of use, comparatively low cost, and extended range when compared with manual bicycles. This study develops a framework for performing a community level feasibility assessment for the adoption and use of e-bikes, particularly as a mode shift away from ICE vehicles.

Feeding Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Environments and Food Systems for Future Resilience

Chris Jones

As we move towards a global population of 9 billion + with our urban areas hosting most of the planets people, the need to be creative in providing quality food in a responsible way is ever greater.

First experience with a Drawdown Scaling Challenge in the Netherlands

Marinus Augustijn

The solutions to reduce climate change are available as shown by Project Drawdown and for instance, the projects submitted for the annual Energy Globe. The question which remains: how to scale these solutions?

From Eating Plants to Smaller Families, Strong Reactions to Low-Carbon Behaviors

Katilyn Mascatelli, Sarah States

Background: Perceptions of potentially difficult yet impactful individual actions to reduce carbon emissions are understudied. These impactful actions include having one fewer child, living car-free, and eating a plant-based diet. A mixed-methods approach prompted conversation about these topics by soliciting direct input and measuring emotions and planned behaviors people have in reaction to information about the carbon savings of these individual actions.

Geographic Variation of US Residential Charging Opportunities for Electric Vehicles

Elizabeth Traut

Electric vehicles, in combination with a decarbonized electric grid, are an important strategy to shift US transportation energy use away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner sources. However, lack of residential charging opportunities could be a major barrier to high levels of plug-in vehicle adoption, since the current charging paradigm relies heavily on overnight charging and most drivers prefer it.

Green Theatre in Training, College Green Captains and the Broadway Green Alliance

Charlene A. Gross

Live Entertainment Production, including Sports, Concerts and Theatre are resource intensive. Live events demand purpose built stadiums, theatres and substantial infrastructure investments. These investments impact utilities, transportation, parking/stormwater and facility maintenance. There are also short term scenic elements purpose built for single shows. The Broadway Green Alliance is dedicated to reducing the overall environmental footprint of live production.

Indiana Drawdown

Daniel Poynter

Indiana Drawdown is inspired by Georgia Drawdown and others. It's grassroots and modeled after the opensource software movement. It values radical transparency and participation. Our main goal is to reduce Indiana's emissions 45% by 2030, as the IPCC says we must.

We've identified 200 entities already implementing Drawdown solutions in Indiana. Most don't know about Drawdown or how impactful their work is regarding climate change.

Mirrors for Earth’s Energy Rebalancing (MEER:ReflEction): Resource-Driven Engineering Leveraging Earth’s Chemistries to Immediately Offer Remediation

Ye Tao

Anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases (GHG) enter the atmosphere as peoples exercise their unalienable rights in pursuit of well-being and prosperity.  Once airborne, the aerosols cool the Earth almost as much as co-emitted GHG warm it.  This balancing act has masked an additional 1C of warming, should the aerosols disappear when phasing out the fossil fuels without compensatory solar radiation management.  In this scenario, existing knowledge about ecosystem responses project a probabl

POLARIS: The Pursuing Opportunities for Long-term Arctic Resilience for Infrastructure and Society

Guangqing Chi, Davin Holen, E. Lance Howe, Chris Maio, Ann Tickamyer, Kathleen Halvorsen, Erika Smithwick, Andy Baltensperger, Matthew Berman, James Ford, Kathleen Hill, Anne Jensen, Leif Jensen, Nic Kinsman, Philip Loring, Joshua Moses, Bronwen Powell, Todd Radenbaugh, Alyssa Rodrigues, Douglas Wrenn, Junjun Yin, Qiujie Zheng

Alaskan coastal Indigenous communities face severe, urgent, and complex social and infrastructural challenges resulting from environmental changes. However, the magnitude and significance of impacts are unclear; as is how local communities will respond to resulting disruptions and disasters.

Producing Pennsylvania-themed Podcasts for Project Drawdown

Anna Nguyen

Podcasts have become popular as an educational tool in recent years, but there is still a lack of podcasts that focus on climate change, specifically ones that address efforts to reverse global warming in Pennsylvania. The goal of this project is to create a series of audio files that address the Project Drawdown solutions in Pennsylvania.

Realistic Ways to Drastically Reduce the CO2 Emission of Cement and Concrete

Farshad Rajabipour, Khashayar Jafari, Mona Zahedi

Portland cement concrete is the most widely used human-made material and makes up approximately 40% by mass of everything we produce. At the same time, it is responsible for 5 to 10% of the global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Portland cement, the most critical ingredient of concrete, is made of the most available elements in Earth’s continental crust, as well as in other terrestrial planets.

Reduction in PM2.5-associated Health Care Costs as Incentive for Healthcare Sector Advocacy for Climate Policy

Rebecca Florsheim, Sarah Johnson

The nature and extent of adverse health outcomes exacerbated by the climate crisis are firmly established. The scientific community has consistently appealed to the healthcare sector to intervene on climate change for the benefit of population health, but also because of the sizeable percentage of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributed to the healthcare system and the significant lobbying power of hospitals and insurers.

Solve Climate By 2030: Solar Dominance + Citizen Action

Eban Goodstein

This poster will discuss a climate education project sponsored by the Bard Center for Environmental Policy that, on April 8, 2020, will sponsor 52 simultaneous, university-hosted, state level webinars focused on the top 3 policy actions needed in each state to drive climate solutions.

Sustainable Development Goals: Curriculum Modules for Engineering

Gabbie Batzko

The Pennsylvania State University is updating engineering first-year seminars (FYS) to include ethics and humanities by incorporating more sustainability and human rights concepts. My research with Penn State’s Drawdown centered around creating new curriculum for Penn State FYS that incorporates the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Swiss Exponential Climate Action Roadmap to 2050

John Moorhead, Alexandra Gavilano

In 2017, Switzerland ratified the Paris agreement and committed to reduce its carbon emissions by half by 2030 (from 1990 levels), including carbon offsets abroad. Switzerland also announced an indicative objective to reduce its emissions by 70%-85% until 2050 (from 1990 emissions), including offsets abroad. Studies that describe the existing solutions, their combined potential and the possible pathways to achieve such objectives are uncommon.

The Economics of Decentralized Emission Control Strategies

Wei Peng, Gokul Iyer, David Victor

Over the last decade, culminating in the Paris Agreement, international climate diplomacy has shifted from strategies that emphasize centralized global cooperation toward decentralized modes of action where states, provinces, cities, firms and other subnational actors lead the way. However, the economic costs of this decentralized approach to policy remain unknown and most economic analysis has emphasized the superiority of uniform global approaches to climate policy.

The New Carbon Economy

Kathleen Draper, Albert Bates

In the IPCC’s Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 °C (2018), biochar was listed as one of several promising negative emissions technologies (NET).

The Pathways Project: Local Planning and Federal Support for Low Carbon Infrastructure in the United States

Elena Crete

2020 is shaping up to be a watershed moment for climate policy in the United States. The Green New Deal proposal has reopened the national conversation about infrastructure and climate change, and galvanized support in some important constituencies. It also raises a key dynamic for climate action, namely the interaction of local action and federal policy.