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Full-Text Articles in Nature and Society Relations
Grain-Washing: The Issue With Corn Ethanol As A Sustainable Aviation Fuel, Emily J. Rinn
Grain-Washing: The Issue With Corn Ethanol As A Sustainable Aviation Fuel, Emily J. Rinn
Scripps Senior Theses
Decarbonizing the aviation sector remains one of the most prevalent obstacles in reducing the United States’ significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Launched in 2021, the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge aims to supply enough fuel to meet 100% of demand by 2050 through reducing its production costs and enhancing its sustainable practices. Corn ethanol feedstock has been proposed to make up as much as half of all SAF production in the 2030 benchmark. This thesis explores the assemblage of corn ethanol – from its true environmental impacts, role in the future SAF market, to research claiming corn …
The Demotechnic Index Of Nations, 1980-2018, Camden Rainwater
The Demotechnic Index Of Nations, 1980-2018, Camden Rainwater
Geosciences Undergraduate Honors Theses
The Demotechnic Index (DI) is a non-dimensional metric that is the scalar multiple of energy consumption over and above that required for mere subsistence of a national population. Thus, the DI is a measure of energy efficiency that scales a country’s industrial energy consumption (called the total technological energy) and the energy required to meet the metabolic demand of the population (called the total metabolic energy). The DI was created by scientist John Vallentyne in 1982, refined in 1994, but never gained popularity or wide use as a sustainability metric. The objective of this thesis was to re-evaluate the DI …
Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen
Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen
Social Sciences
Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …