Sustainability
Renew Nukes? Utilities Use Nuclear Energy To Help Meet Renewable Energy Goals
When you think about renewable energy, does a nuclear power plant come to mind? Probably not. But in a roundabout way, Vermont utilities are using nuclear energy to meet the state’s renewable energy standards.
Read MoreCan Feces Save A Species? Boston Has The World’s Largest Collection Of Right Whale Poop
The Marine Stress and Ocean Health Lab at the New England Aquarium looks like your typical laboratory. It’s full of humming and whirring machines, beakers and test tubes, digital scales and centrifuges.
Read MoreAtlantic Lobster Board Moves Toward Reducing Rope In Effort To Save Right Whales
A consortium of Atlantic states fisheries managers is calling for broad changes to the gear lobstermen use, in an effort to reduce risks posed to the endangered North Atlantic right whale and to ward off potential federal action that could be even more challenging for the industry.
Read MoreVagaries Of The Energy Market: A Boom In Renewables Leads To Higher Rates For Co-op
A boom in renewable energy around New England has led to higher rates for a small Vermont utility. The reason has to do with the declining value of an energy commodity know as “renewable energy credits.”
Read MoreAn Auction For Wind Lots Off The Massachusetts Shore Breaks Records
A wind power auction for three plots of ocean off of the coast of Massachusetts broke a record last week for the highest price ever paid in a U.S. wind lease auction.
Read MoreA Fight for Transparency At New England’s Powerful Energy Industry Group
Energy can be tough to understand. When we flip a light switch, we know the lights should come on. But we might not know where that power came from – or why it costs what it costs.
Read MoreThe Future Of New England’s Electricity Market
ISO New England is in charge of the grid, and they also operate a wholesale electricity market to make sure there’s always power available. It’s a system built on already dizzying complexity, in an energy ecosystem that’s getting more complex, adding new power from renewables all the time.
Read MoreHow Do You Measure How Much Carbon Is In A Tree?
The latest national climate assessment says forests play a key role in keeping our air clean. According to the report, America’s forests stored the equivalent of 11 percent of the country’s C-O-2 emissions over a 25 year period. That’s because when trees breathe they suck up carbon dioxide, release oxygen, and store that leftover carbon in their trunks. But how scientists determine the amount of carbon stored in a tree is a question open for debate.
Read MoreWhy This Invasive Plant Has A Shot At Some Redemption
Robert Buchsbaum walks into a salt marsh on Boston’s North Shore. Around him towers a stand of bushy-topped Phragmites australis, an invasive plant commonly known as the common reed. Or, as some call it: the all-too-common reed.
Read MoreThe Last Chocolate Turkeys: New Hampshire Farmer Ends Effort To Sustain Endangered Breed
A farmer in Loudon, New Hampshire is calling it quits on a years-long project – to breed a rare type of turkey called the Chocolate turkey.
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