After remaining steady for three years, global fossil fuel emissions are rising again and may increase again next year. But improved energy efficiency and a booming renewables market may offer a bit of a silver lining.

“This year’s result is discouraging, but I remain hopeful,” says Rob Jackson, professor at the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, which released a series of reports in Environmental Research Letters.

“In the US, cities, states, and companies have seized leadership on energy efficiency and low-carbon renewables that the federal government has abdicated.”

The report appears with data published simultaneously in an Earth System Science Data Discussions paper led by Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, who is also part of the Global Carbon Project.

Together, they forecast that global fossil fuel emissions will reach a record 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2017, with total emissions reaching a record 41 billion tons, including deforestation. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration reached 403 parts per million in 2016, and is expected to increase by 2.5 parts per million in 2017.

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Topic Close-up #5

Symposium B04: The International Symposium on Nanomaterials: Focus – Korea

Symposium Focus: This mega-symposium is dedicated to cover science and applications in nanocarbons and other nanoscale materials, and present the contemporary state-of-the-art of this field in Korea. It is sponsored by the Nanocarbons, Dielectric Science and Technology, and Electronics and Photonics Divisions, and the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Subcommittee of the Electrochemical Society, along with the Korean Electrochemical Society.

The primary goal of this symposium is to share the most recent results and promote USA-Korea scientific cooperation efforts. Papers are solicited on experimental and theoretical studies related to the basic chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering of nanocarbons, fullerenes, porphyrins, supramolecular, inorganic-organic hybrid and functional materials, nanotubes, graphene and 2D layered materials, as well as on their novel applications in areas such as energy and catalytic conversion, sensors, medicine and biology, electronic and photonic devices, and materials development.

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A reversible fabric keeps skin a comfortable temperature whatever the weather—and could save energy by keeping us away from the thermostat.

As reported in Science Advances, the double-sided fabric is based on the same material as everyday kitchen wrap and can offer warmth or cooling depending on which side faces out.

“Why do you need to cool and heat the whole building? Why don’t you cool and heat individual people?” says Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University, who thought if people could be more comfortable in a range of temperatures, they could save energy on air conditioning and central heating.

Thirteen percent of all of the energy consumed in the United States is due to indoor temperature control. But for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that a thermostat is turned down, a building can save a whopping 10 percent of its heating energy—and the reverse is true for cooling. So adjusting temperature controls by just a few degrees could have major effects on energy consumption.

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Topic Close-up #4

Symposium H04: Wearable and Flexible Electronic and Photonic Technologies

Symposium Focus: With the advent of connected living, health and communication, and its proliferation to the development of the internet of things, wearable devices are a critical technology. Underlying advancements in wearable and flexible electronic and photonic technologies, are materials science of new and alternative materials and methods of coating and deposition, characterization of flexible and transparent or plastic electronic devices, the electronics behind new sensor development for wearables and flexible technology, and new device design concepts. This symposium will address all aspects of wearable and flexible devices technology, from materials through working prototypes and provide a leading international forum for the most exciting developments in the fundamental science and device engineering of next-generation electronics and photonics for a whole range of applications.

Invited Speakers and Special Features: Many inspirational speakers and leaders in wearable and flexible science and technology will be featured in this symposium, including Joe Wang, Mark Hersam, Huisheng Peng, Zhong Lin Wang, Bozhi Tian, Yuri Gogotsi and many others. The symposium

ECS hosted its first ever satellite OpenCon event on October 1, 2017 during the 232nd ECS Meeting in National Harbor, MD. This landmark event marked ECS’s first large community effort aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

Watch full coverage of the event.

OpenCon is an international event hosted by the Right to Research Coalition, a student organization of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. OpenCon provides a platform the researchers to learn about open access and open science, develop critical skills, and catalyze action toward a more open system for sharing the world’s information.

This event featured vocal advocates in the open movement, examining the intersection of advances in research infrastructure, the researcher experience, funder mandates and policies, as well as the global shift that is happening in traditional scholarly communications.

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Researchers have developed a type of “smart paper” that can conduct electricity and detect water.

The paper, laced with conductive nanomaterials, can be employed as a switch, turning on or off an LED light, or as an alarm system indicating the absence or presence of water.

In cities and large-scale manufacturing plants, a water leak in a complicated network of pipes can take tremendous time and effort to detect, as technicians must disassemble many pieces to locate the problem.

The American Water Works Association indicates that nearly a quarter-million water line breaks occur each year in the United States, costing public water utilities about $2.8 billion annually.

The smart paper could simplify the process for discovering detrimental leaks.

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Topic Close-up #3

Symposium E01: Electrodeposition of Micro and Nano Materials for Batteries and Sensors

Symposium Focus: This symposium will cover advances in electrochemical deposition (electrolytic, electroless, chemical bath or electrochemical ALD) for energy storage and sensor devices. The electronics industry has demonstrated electrochemical processing at micro and nano dimensions for interconnect, barrier layer, magnetics and solder applications for metals, alloys and composites. A large number of relevant active materials and current collector scaffolds can also be deposited, structured and post-processed electrochemically for use in advanced batteries and sensor devices. These processes can enable future micro-devices for the internet of things but equally can address improvements in certain components for large capacity batteries, electrolyzers or fuel cells. Our symposium welcomes also papers covering vapor deposition techniques such as ALD which can be used in combination with the wet chemical deposition routes for the fabrication of microdevices.

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ECS is honored to report that Research4Life has recognized the Society as its publisher of the month. In a recent blog post, Research4Life highlights the wide scope and impact of its partnership with ECS.

Research4Life is a collective comprised of various programs, multiple institutions, and over 185 international scientific publishers committed to providing developing countries free or affordable access to critical scientific research.

ECS partnered with Research4Life this past March in an effort to help close the knowledge gap between high-income and low- and middle-income countries across the developing world.

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By: Kevin Elliott, Michigan State University

Scientists these days face a conundrum. As Americans are buffeted by accounts of fake news, alternative facts and deceptive social media campaigns, how can researchers and their scientific expertise contribute meaningfully to the conversation?

There is a common perception that science is a matter of hard facts and that it can and should remain insulated from the social and political interests that permeate the rest of society. Nevertheless, many historians, philosophers and sociologists who study the practice of science have come to the conclusion that trying to kick values out of science risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Ethical and social values – like the desire to promote economic development, public health or environmental protection – often play integral roles in scientific research. By acknowledging this, scientists might seem to give away their authority as a defense against the flood of misleading, inaccurate information that surrounds us. But I argue in my book “A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science” that if scientists take appropriate steps to manage and communicate about their values, they can promote a more realistic view of science as both value-laden and reliable.

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New research sheds light on the effectiveness and value of carbon-pricing incentive programs.

In a new paper, based on analysis of a 2015 pilot program on the Yale University campus, researchers examine internal carbon-pricing strategies, including different models of implementation.

Further, they illustrate how the Yale project, which has since expanded into a campus-wide initiative, has provided empirical evidence of the effectiveness of these price signals.

More than 600 major companies—from BP to Microsoft—have adopted carbon-pricing programs to spur energy conservation and control their carbon emissions. But researchers have previously not analyzed or publicly reported the effectiveness of these efforts.

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