National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration- NOAA: U.S. Winter and February Cooler Than AverageNOAA’s State of the Climate report for the winter season (December through February) and the month of February, state that temperatures were below normal for the contiguous United States. The winter season was wetter than normal; however precipitation in February alone was slightly below average. […]
- NOAA’s Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Propose ESA Listing Changes for the Loggerhead Sea TurtleNOAA’s Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), jointly referred to as the Services, announced today their joint determination that the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) is globally comprised of nine distinct population segments (DPSs) that qualify as “species” for listing as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Sp […]
- Hurricane Forecasters Bring Preparedness Message to Atlantic, Mexico and CaribbeanNOAA and the U.S. Air Force Reserve will host a series of public events from March 18 to 27 in six coastal communities in Bermuda, Mexico and the Caribbean to urge residents to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season. […]
- NOAA: U.S. Winter and February Cooler Than Average
- Sea Shephard Ocean Protection
- Antarctic Campaign Report – Success Defending Whales!Antarctic Campaign Report – Success Defending Whales! Ships are expendable, endangered whales species are not 2009-2010 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign: Operation Waltzing Matilda After three long weary and dramatic months upon the most remote and hostile seas in the world, the Sea Shepherd ships Steve Irwin and Bob Barker were welcomed by crowds of cheer […]
- Japanese Whalers Are Clear Cutting the “Forests” of the Southern OceanJapanese Whalers Are Clear Cutting the “Forests” of the Southern Ocean Intelligence willfully destroyed to read booksMoby Dick read by the light of burning whales,Without a thought, blind to the connectionsBy death’s bright light, is read another bookThou shalt not kill is one of the lying tales.We define what is right by biased selections- Captain P […]
- Sea Shepherd Ships Complete Operations in Southern Ocean for 2010Sea Shepherd Ships Complete Operations in Southern Ocean for 2010 1800 Hours: Perth and Fremantle100 Hours: Sydney and Hobart0200 Hours: (PST) Friday Harbor and Los Angeles Captain Paul Watson has ordered the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker to disengage from further pursuit of the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru and to set a course for Hobart, Tasmania. “T […]
- Antarctic Campaign Report – Success Defending Whales!
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Science Wednesday: Sustainability Is Our True NorthEach week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays. A week ago at the Keck Center of the National Academies, I heard Paul Anastas, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development, speak about sustainability. He said, “sustainability is our true north.” That started my thinking ab […]
- Discussing the DiscussionMy job provides a lot of opportunities to meet with people face-to-face. I’ve met with environmental justice advocates in New Orleans, mayors affected by auto sector closures in the Midwest, and tribal representatives in Montana, just to name a few. It’s all part of Administrator Jackson’s directive to expand the conversation on environmentalism. But n […]
- CHILDHOOD OBESITY PART I: Healthy DietsFor the past two years I have been volunteering at a local elementary school in my hometown. Only recently did I have a chance to see the cafeteria. Scanning the trays I saw the “typical” cafeteria foods : pizza, hotdogs, and hamburgers. Rarely did I see fruits and vegetables, but I always saw some sort [...] […]
- Science Wednesday: Sustainability Is Our True North
- Environment
- Reduce U.S. Consumption of PetroleumThe price of oil is currently hovering near $80 per barrel, but that doesn’t include the potential economic costs to the United States that would be caused by disruptions in oil supply, according to a recent discussion paper by Resources for the Future (RFF), an independent research group. That report estimated the oil security premium [...] […]
- Reduce U.S. Consumption of Petroleum
Refrigeration Problems: a Magnetically Attractive Solution
by NIST
Your refrigerator’s humming, electricity-guzzling cooling system could soon be a lot smaller, quieter and more economical thanks to an exotic metal alloy discovered by an international collaboration working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Center for Neutron Research (NCNR).*
The alloy may prove to be a long-sought material that will permit magnetic cooling instead of the gas-compression systems used for home refrigeration and air conditioning. The magnetic cooling technique, though used for decades in science and industry, has yet to find application in the home because of technical and environmental hurdles—but the NIST collaboration may have overcome them.
Magnetic cooling relies on materials called magnetocalorics, which heat up when exposed to a powerful magnetic field. After they cool off by radiating this heat away, the magnetic field is removed, and their temperature drops again, this time dramatically. The effect can be used in a classic refrigeration cycle, and scientists have attained temperatures of nearly absolute zero this way. Two factors have kept magnetic cooling out of the consumer market: most magnetocalorics that function at close to room temperature require both the prohibitively expensive rare metal gadolinium and arsenic, a deadly toxin.
But conventional gas-compression refrigerators have their own drawbacks. They commonly use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), greenhouse gases that can contribute to climate change if they escape into the atmosphere. In addition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to improve traditional refrigeration. “The efficiency of the gas cycle has pretty much maxed out,” said Jeff Lynn of NCNR. “The idea is to replace that cycle with something else.”
The alloy the team has found—a mixture of manganese, iron, phosphorus and germanium—is not merely the first near-room-temperature magnetocaloric to contain neither gadolinium nor arsenic—rendering it both safer and cheaper—but also it has such strong magnetocaloric properties that a system based on it could rival gas compression in efficiency.
Working alongside (and inspired by) visiting scientists from the Beijing University of Technology, the team used NIST’s neutron diffraction equipment to analyze the novel alloy. They found that when exposed to a magnetic field, the newfound material’s crystal structure completely changes, which explains its exceptional performance.
“Understanding how to fine-tune this change in crystal structure may allow us to get our alloy’s efficiency even higher,” says NIST crystallographer Qing Huang. “We are still playing with the composition, and if we can get it to magnetize uniformly, we may be able to further improve the efficiency.”
Members of the collaboration include scientists from NIST, Beijing University of Technology, Princeton University and McGill University. Funding for the project was provided by NIST.