Cattle farming has often been portrayed as having the most detrimental environmental impact because it takes the most grazing land, uses a lot of water and has large methane emissions. But it’s not the worst. And is locally produced food always best for the environment?
Solar energy is good news for planet Earth – but solar panels are not as climate-friendly as they should be. Researcher Martin Bellmann is using what he calls the ‘black gold’ waste materials from solar panel manufacture to make new panels.
Waste slags from the metallurgy industries often contain valuable materials, but in very small concentrations. This means that large areas of valuable land are used to accommodate reservoirs filled with what is sometimes toxic waste. We now want to use hydrogen to convert this waste into a resource.
Tremendous floods in Pakistan earlier this year forced 600,000 pregnant women to leave their homes for safer ground. It was just one in a series of nearly unthinkable happenings caused by climate change — and a clear message that humankind has to do more to stop it.
We know very little about very many species. Unfortunately, that’s often not a good sign.
Norway needs to take proactive steps to retain its lead in developing floating offshore wind, says NTNU professor.
Up until now it has been a challenge to store the energy we generate when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. But researchers at a laboratory in Trondheim in Norway have succeeded in doing just this – and entirely without any form of advanced battery technology.
Is it too late to save our planet? Professor Jianguo Liu is the newest winner of The Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science. He offers us some hope.
Norwegians are not necessarily being selfish by wanting to go back to the good old days of cheap electricity. Nor do people think it is acceptable to use the situation for some to enrich themselves at the expense of others, says the researcher.
Heating with oil in homes and commercial buildings is now banned in Norway. The storage tanks are supposed to be removed from buildings, but many people choose not to get rid of these environmental time bombs.
The idea behind batteries is to make the planet greener, but they all start their lives as energy-demanding environmental liabilities. Research scientists at SINTEF have succeeded in making batteries cheaper and simpler using a process that requires much less energy consumption.
Many buildings with solar cells produce more electricity than they consume themselves, but current legislation prevents surplus power from being sold to neighbouring consumers. A pilot project in Trondheim will be the first in the world to test a system that makes this possible.
How Norwegian scientists and engineers harnessed the country’s wild waterfalls by developing super efficient turbines — and how advances in turbine technology being developed now may be the future in a zero-carbon world.
The climate will benefit if we shift to using aluminium in more and more construction. Buyers need to look past the procurement costs and consider the total life cycle costs instead.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its third Working Group report on how humankind can mitigate the ecosystem and societal effects of climate change. Much can be done, but the challenges remain enormous, the report confirms.
While former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg steered Norway according to the logic of economics, today’s politicians seem to lack a basic understanding of markets. The result is a policy that amplifies energy scarcity and drives up energy prices – without policymakers recognizing this unintended consequence.
Professor Edgar Hertwich has been named to the EU’s newly constituted European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, while Professor Francesco Cherubini has been asked to serve as a Lead Author for an upcoming assessment by The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
A shortage of phosphorous is driving the price of artificial fertilisers through the roof. But a new and eco-friendly wastewater decontamination process has enabled a company in Hamar in Norway to kill two birds with one stone.
Dye pigments are often toxic, so researchers around the world have long been looking for effective ways to make non-toxic, recyclable and sustainable colours instead. The answer lies in nanotechnology and nature’s own methods.
NTNU researcher Marius Korsnes has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) . He will explore the concept of “sufficiency” when it comes to urban, sustainable food.
Increases in economic growth contribute to one-for-one increases in carbon emissions. Energy system decarbonization and economic productivity gains are the most effective carbon emissions mitigation mechanisms for sustainable economic development.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is going to three individuals who found that the world isn’t always as chaotic as we think.
Climate change is not the greatest threat to the diversity of species on Earth. The main problem is that animal and plant habitats are disappearing.
Goats are smart animals. A new technology takes advantage of their intelligence — so they longer need physical fences. More than 2400 Norwegian farmers are already using the technology to herd their animals.
